


A Careful Kind of Something

by hope_in_the_dark



Series: A Careful Kind of Something ‘Verse [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Bisexual Character, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gen, High School, I have no idea how to tag this tbh, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots, M/M, Religious Themes, Slow Burn, and the ace-ness is not explicitly stated here so much as it is in my other fics, but rest assured it's there!, friends to not-lovers-exactly-but-romantic-partners, they're ace-spectrum but exactly where they fall is not defined
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-05-14 16:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 58,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19277116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_in_the_dark/pseuds/hope_in_the_dark
Summary: Ezra Seraff and Anthony Crowley aren't exactly what you'd call friends. Yet.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Un Algo Cuidadoso](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20265205) by [ImSoReddie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImSoReddie/pseuds/ImSoReddie)
  * Translation into Русский available: [A Careful Kind of Something (перевод)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20489936) by [going_wrong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/going_wrong/pseuds/going_wrong)



> A high-school AU that I just really wanted to play with. I hope you like it; please feel free to leave kudos and comments! 
> 
> I'm American attempting to write UK stuff based on my admittedly limited knowledge, so feel free to send me corrections if I get things wrong! It's also my first fic ever, so woohoo I guess?
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Good Omens (or other proprietary things mentioned in this fic, like Queen songs and Harry Potter).
> 
> Heads up for language, substance use, mentions of family trauma (no physical abuse), and homophobia.
> 
> No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of things (ish). Some background on our guys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we go! I'd love to hear what you think. Hopefully I'll be updating this really regularly until it's done. :)

It wasn’t that Ezra hated Anthony Crowley, exactly. Ezra was the sort of person who never found it within himself to truly hate another person; this was, of course, mostly due to his parents and his religious beliefs but also partly because he was just a good person. So, whenever Ezra thought about Crowley, he was careful not to think hateful things and instead contented himself with thinking very uncharitable ones.

Ezra did not hate Crowley, but he certainly didn’t like him. Crowley was, in the words of Ezra’s father, a “flash bastard.” He grew up with plenty of money and acted like it. He drove a vintage black Bentley that his dad had given to him for his sixteenth birthday, and he drove it in such a way that he caused between six and twenty near-accidents any time he went anywhere. The Bentley was Crowley’s pride and joy, and he was so protective of it that Ezra had only ever seen it from a distance. Only Crowley’s closest friends got to touch the Bentley, let alone ride in it, and Ezra was most decidedly not in that group. The reason that Ezra and Crowley weren’t friends was fairly simple: Crowley was the coolest person in year thirteen, and Ezra was one of the least cool (if not _the_ least cool).

Crowley had moved to London from Manchester in year eight, and he had always stuck out from the crowd. The first reason was the ever-present sunglasses perched on his nose. Indoors or outdoors, sunny day or rainy one, summer or winter, Crowley’s dark shades sat on his face like they were glued on. Early on, his teachers had tried to get him to take them off, but he’d refused. After a series of detentions, two memorable suspensions (the first because Crowley had slapped the teacher who’d tried to take off his glasses, the second because he’d jumped out of a window while serving a detention – which he’d received for wearing his sunglasses – because he’d decided he wanted to leave), and an expulsion that was reversed because his father had called and had a nice chat with the headmaster, the teachers at St. Monica’s Secondary School had given up. Crowley’s sunglasses stayed.

The second reason Crowley stuck out was the way he dressed. He always looked sharp; his hairstyles and hair color had changed over the years, but he always smelled like expensive cologne and wore dark clothes that toed the line of fitting a little too tightly to be acceptable at a religious institution. That was a constant with Crowley. He never looked like he’d had a poor night’s sleep or had gotten up too late to get ready for school – the latter of these might have been because Crowley was never, not once, on time for school. He was always perfectly coiffed, perfectly perfumed, and perfectly elegant in a very dangerous way.

At the moment, Crowley looked like this: unnaturally red hair styled up in elegant spikes, (obviously) tight-fitting dark jeans, collared shirts of various shades of grey and red (sometimes paired with a loosened tie or scarf, sometimes just undone to about halfway down his chest), snakeskin boots for no explicable reason at all, and a dark leather jacket that looked black but sometimes flirted with dark blue. He’d also gotten a tattoo of a snake on the side of his face, just beneath his sideburn. Crowley topped off the whole ensemble with his sunglasses and a smirk that made Ezra want to punch him.

The way Crowley dressed and the type of car he drove weren’t really what bothered Ezra (although it did bother him a little, because these things meant Crowley had lots of friends and Ezra never had many). They bothered Ezra’s father, of course, because Mr. Seraff was a hard-working man who always did right by his family but had to put in some serious effort to make sure that Ezra and his brothers were alright. Even then, Christmases were never anything spectacular, and birthdays were celebrated with a dinner out at a local restaurant chain. The Crowleys, however, had money to spare and were sure to rub it in everyone’s faces by giving their son the best of everything. Mr. and Mrs. Crowley themselves never deigned to show their faces to those they deemed below their status, and so no one had seen them in years. That was the type of "uppity nonsense" that rubbed Ezra's parents the wrong way. 

No, what bothered Ezra about Crowley was that Crowley could get away with anything. Sure, the teachers and administrators at St. Monica’s hated Crowley, but what could they do? The Crowleys were one of the biggest private donors to the school, and a very threatening-looking lawyer seemed to appear whenever Crowley was in any sort of trouble at school. So, Crowley got away with everything he did, which included pulling pranks on people who didn’t deserve it, talking back to teachers, falling asleep in class, and only passing his classes because he was such a royal pain in the arse that none of his teachers wanted to hold him back and teach him for another year. Ezra couldn’t understand how someone so infuriating and rude could possibly do whatever he pleased without punishment, but there Crowley was, doing just that. Ezra also couldn’t fathom being disrespectful to his teachers and tended to dislike anyone who was, and Crowley’s second-favorite pastime (after cleaning his car, of course) was finding teachers’ buttons and pushing them, _hard_.

Ezra had been raised to work hard, and he did so. He was top of his class every year in academics and was president of a couple clubs and organizations. He was the kid who had real, meaningful discussions with his teachers after class and who was disappointed in himself if he earned anything lower than a 90 percent on an exam. Ezra practically lived in the library; his family owned a television, but he’d never liked movies as much as books, so he was far behind his classmates in the realm of pop-culture knowledge. To Ezra, things like fashion and hairstyles were both too expensive to think about and too silly to bother understanding, so he dressed in whatever he could find at the thrift store by his house that fit him reasonably well (these clothes ended up being mostly old jumpers in varying shades of beige, stiff-collared shirts, loose-fitting jeans, and tan work boots). He wasn’t exactly overweight, but he wasn’t rail-thin like Crowley, either. He was the type of person who looked as though he thoroughly enjoyed both eating and exercising, which was true. But more than anything else, Ezra was just… Ezra. Just an eighteen-year-old guy with dreams of going to Oxford and studying English literature and the far-flung hope of running a bookshop in central London after that.

On this particular Tuesday, Ezra was sitting in the library (as usual) reading _The Brothers Karamazov_ (as he’d been doing for the past week) and waiting for the person who was coming to meet him for academic help. Tutoring was one of his responsibilities because of a club he was in, and so he hadn’t been surprised when he’d gotten a note in class saying that he had a new person to tutor and should meet them in the school library at four. Now, though, it was almost half-past-four and this new person was nowhere to be seen.

“If you’re going to make an appointment, _show up_ for it,” Ezra muttered as he flipped the page so sharply the corner tore a little. He winced, smoothing out the paper and apologizing to the book in his mind.

“I didn’t make this appointment, _angel_.”

Ezra spun around to see none other than Crowley leaning against a bookshelf in a way that should have been hurting his spine, leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder. Crowley was smirking like always, and he ran a hand idly through his red hair.

Sighing, Ezra decided against calling him a bastard (because he didn’t curse but also because he was trying to be nice) and stood up, pulling Crowley’s chair out for him. “Don’t call me that, Crowley. And you’re late.” Crowley collapsed into the chair, sitting in an entirely inappropriate way and scowling at Ezra, who had sat down across the table and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.

“I don’t want to be here,” drawled Crowley. “I have to be here, or they won’t let me finish. Headmaster Prickston-” Ezra flinched at the word and told himself it wasn’t worth correcting “-said that if I don’t get real passing grades this semester, he’s going to hold me back a year, and I couldn't argue my way out of it.”

Ezra shrugged. “Okay. So what do you need help with?”

Crowley fixed him with a glare that he could feel despite not being able to see Crowley’s eyes. “What the fuck do you think I need help with, angel? Everything.”

“ _Don’t_ call me that. And mind your language, please.”

Crowley just laughed and opened his bag, pulling out a crumpled wad of paper that Ezra soon discovered to be a month’s worth of unfinished Latin worksheets. “Pulsifer says I owe him these by the end of the week.”

“The end of the _week_?” Ezra’s blue eyes went wide with shock. Crowley just shrugged and pulled a (sleek, black, expensive) pen out of his pocket and set it on the table. “My _word_ , honestly! Would it kill you to pick up a textbook once in a while?”

Ezra looked up from the pile of papers to see Crowley mouthing _my word_ in a very exaggerated, mocking manner. He rolled his eyes, pushed his glasses up his nose, and pulled his Latin textbook out of his own bag.

“Hey,” said Crowley, disinterest evident in his voice. “About the textbook… do you have one I could borrow?”

“You don’t… you don’t have a _textbook_?” Ezra was almost shouting now, which was highly unusual both because he knew the quietness rules of the library a little too well and because he almost never raised his voice to anyone about anything.

Crowley shook his head and tilted his chair back onto two legs to stare at the ceiling. Ezra sighed again, hooked his boot around the front leg of Crowley’s chair and yanked the chair back to the ground.

One perfectly shaped eyebrow climbed onto Crowley’s forehead. “ _Hoo_ , angel, you seem a bit pissed off! Have I done something wrong already?” His smile seemed to suggest that he rather hoped he had.

“I hate you,” said Ezra, very nearly meaning it.

Crowley just grinned and leaned across the table to steal Ezra’s textbook, leaving Ezra to wonder what exactly he’d done to offend God badly enough to earn this.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin of "angel" is explained, a new arrangement is reached, and it is revealed that Crowley is a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I've rewritten this chapter a couple times now. Still not sure how happy I am with it (it definitely took a turn I wasn't planning on), so I'd be interested to hear what you think! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated, of course :) 
> 
> Heads up for alcohol use in this one.

Contrary to the perception of his teachers, Crowley was not an unintelligent person. In fact, he was rather smart, but he didn’t want people to know because it made it more difficult for him to pull off the act of being a juvenile delinquent, which he quite enjoyed. Ezra knew, though. After all, the nickname “angel” did come from somewhere.

Back when Crowley had first moved to London, he’d been sat next to Ezra in English class because the teacher thought that he looked like trouble and consequently forced Ezra into putting up with him in the hopes that Ezra’s goodness might rub off on him. This little experiment was, as always, unsuccessful, but Ezra had at first made an effort to be conversational and nice. As it happened, they had been reading an excerpt from Dante’s _Divine Comedy_ , which was honestly a bit ambitious for year eight, but Ezra was enjoying it quite a bit and Crowley was scowling at his notebook and writing rude words in pen on the desk.

“What do you think angels look like, Anthony?” Ezra had tried before to talk to Crowley but had never gotten much more than a grunt in the way of a reply, so he was shocked when Crowley responded.

“It’s not Anthony, it’s Crowley. And rather like you, I suppose.”

Ezra’s head had snapped around instantly, a blush starting to form on his cheeks, but any thoughts that he might have just received a compliment were silenced by the look on Crowley’s face. The smirk that now was as permanent as Crowley’s sunglasses had made its first appearance, and Ezra had hated it on sight.

“What do you mean by that?”

Crowley gave an exaggerated sigh and flapped one of his pale, long-fingered hands about a bit. “I don’t know. All fair-haired and light-eyed, and probably dressed in fashion that is a few centuries out of date, and probably so kind-looking that they just look… punchable.”

“Oh.” Definitely not a compliment, then. Ezra had gone back to taking notes, doing his level best to ignore Crowley’s high-pitched giggle.

A few weeks after the original incident, Ezra was jolted out of his diligent essay-writing by a pencil poking into his shoulder.

“Angel, your nickname is even better than I thought.”

Ezra ignored him.

“See, your surname is Seraff. It’s just a different spelling of seraph, isn’t it? And a seraph is a kind of angel.” Crowley poked Ezra with the pencil again, this time between the ribs. “Ha. I’m quite clever.”

Ezra went on ignoring him, but Crowley had decided that “angel” was the only acceptable name for Ezra, and so it was. Over the years, Ezra had tried everything to get Crowley to stop using that nickname, but nothing had ever worked. Oddly enough, though, no one else was allowed to call him that; Crowley’s friend Hastur had tried once, but Crowley had sucker-punched him in the gut and told him to shut up (a reaction which had surprised and puzzled Ezra since it happened, but one that he’d eventually stopped trying to understand because most things about Crowley exceeded normal human understanding).

So, because Ezra knew Crowley was smart, he found himself needing to exercise tremendous amounts of self-restraint when it came to his reactions to Crowley’s grades. As it happened, he and Crowley were sitting at what had become their usual table in the library, and Crowley had rather triumphantly handed him an English essay with a failing grade marked in blood-red ink.

“I don’t understand you, Crowley.”

Crowley was smirking at him, as always. Rather than providing a response, Crowley made a sound like “ngk” and continued spinning his pen on the table.

“You’re smart. I _know_ you’re smart.” Ezra was, quite simply, baffled and frustrated. It had been a few weeks since he’d started tutoring Crowley, and while he’d managed to help Crowley get his homework grades up in most classes, Crowley’s most important grades remained abysmal.

Quite suddenly, Ezra was nearly nose-to-nose with a snarling Crowley.

“Oi, I am _not_ smart, so don’t go spreading it around!” Crowley hissed, settling back into his seat and spreading out his lanky limbs once more.

Just at that moment, a small group of tenth or eleventh year girls walked past, giggling. One of them, a pretty blonde with expensive-looking clothes and a nice smile, waved at Crowley. He gave her a little quirk of his lips, just enough to qualify as a smile, and she and her friends disappeared around the corner. Ezra could hear their over-excited whispers until the library door clicked shut behind them.

  
“Thank fuck none of my friends ever come into the library,” Crowley muttered, tucking one long leg under the other and slumping forward against the table.

Ezra had opened his mouth to chastise Crowley for his language (for what must have been the sixth time in twice as many minutes) when he realized what Crowley had said. Crowley didn’t want to be seen in the library by anyone who really knew him. Crowley - slick, tall, handsome, unflappable, _cool_ Crowley - was embarrassed.

Ezra pushed his glasses up his nose and picked up the essay that had been mocking him from the tabletop since Crowley had set it there. As he read, he had an idea, and before he’d had a chance to really think about it, he was proposing it.

“We don’t _have_ to study here, you know,” he said. Crowley’s head jerked up a little, and Ezra could feel Crowley’s eyes boring holes into his forehead.

“What, angel?”

Ezra shrugged. “I said we don’t have to study here. We can go somewhere else. It’s fine by the school, but I’ve just never needed to do it because most people I tutor are fine just doing it here.”

  
“I’m fine here.” Crowley had leaned back again, resting his neck on the top of the chair and trying to appear nonchalant.

“If you’re not, though, we can go somewhere different.” Ezra paused then, heart beating a little faster in preparation for what he was about to say. “You’re never going to get your grades up to snuff if we’re just sat here four days a week while you worry about being seen by someone you know. It’s a waste of my time and yours.”

“I said I’m fine. And I am _not_ worried,” Crowley snarled (with the emphasis of someone who was, in fact, very worried indeed). Ezra shook his head and leaned over to discuss Crowley’s essay, trying not to be offended by the other boy’s typical lack of interest.

Ezra was unlocking his bike when he heard the purr of a motor and the sharp click of a closing door from behind him.

“Suppose I did want to try studying somewhere else,” came Crowley’s smooth voice. He was leaning against the hood of his Bentley, snakeskin boots glinting in the headlights. “Where would you propose?” Ezra could tell he was trying to act as if he didn’t care, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“There’s a coffee shop by my house,” Ezra said. “None of your friends live near me, so they wouldn’t go there.”

Crowley appeared to be considering this. “If none of my friends live close to you, that means _I_ don’t either. Not sure I want to drive to whatever shithole you live in just to get in a bit of tutoring.”

Ezra stiffened, hands clenched into fists at his side. “It’s your choice, Crowley. We can try to work in a place where you might know people, which means you’ll be distracted and too focused on making sure you’re acting cool enough to keep up your image to _actually focus_ , or we can go somewhere no one will know you so that you can get your grades up and finish school.” He knew he was breathing a little too hard and could feel the angry pink blush in his cheeks, but he didn’t care. He just stood there, staring at Crowley, waiting for the smug git to do or say something.

Crowley gave a long-suffering sigh (and Ezra could have sworn he rolled his eyes, even though he couldn’t see them). “Okay, fine. Send me the address of this coffee shop, will you, angel?” With a smirk and a mock salute, Crowley folded his skinny frame into his Bentley and drove off at a speed that was ill-suited to a school car park. It wasn’t until the Bentley had disappeared from sight that Ezra realized he didn’t have Crowley’s phone number.

“Oh, dear.” Just as the words left his mouth, the grey clouds above his head opened and fat raindrops splashed onto his head, flattening his hair and splashing his glasses. “Just my luck.” He climbed onto his bike and began riding home, checking his watch only to find that he would be late for dinner.

**********

Crowley was driving down Oxford Street at 90 miles an hour when it started to rain. Unbidden, his thoughts drifted to Ezra, riding his bike home through the pouring rain with his curly blond hair plastered to his forehead. To his complete surprise and mild disgust, Crowley found that he was actually concerned.

He made a face in the rearview mirror, swerving just in time to avoid a pedestrian. The strains of a guitar solo flowed out of the car’s speakers, and Crowley did his level best to stop thinking about Ezra. Oddly, though, the frumpy geek’s blue eyes seemed to be burned into his brain.

“Fuck,” said Crowley, stepping on the gas pedal a little harder than he already had been. The absolute last thing he needed was to encourage the little crush he’d been harboring for years. When he stopped for a red light (an uncommon occurrence in and of itself), he fumbled around in his glove box until he found a little bottle of vodka, which he swallowed in one gulp. Instead of making him feel better, though, the alcohol caused his brain to summon the image of Ezra’s most disapproving glare.

The light turned green, and Crowley floored it.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said again, this time with a little more gusto. He decided that the only thing to do was to drown his feelings in whatever liquor was in the cabinet at home, so that was what he did. Four hours later, Crowley passed out on his bed, an empty bottle of tequila on his floor and a tumbler of scotch on his bedside table.

His parents weren’t around to care.


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ezra discovers that Crowley might be a wanker, but not as much of one as he'd originally thought. Also: the beginnings of Ezra seriously thinking about who he's attracted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, so I've written a big mess of a thing today, and I thought it would be wiser to split it into two rather than make you all suffer through many thousands of words all at once (I've got to finish the big mess, but when that's done it'll be chapter four). Also, I think it works better, plot-wise. 
> 
> So yeah, this isn't a super eventful chapter, and there's no resolution to Crowley's stuff yet (there won't be for a few chapters, if things go as I'm planning, which they might not). 
> 
> Just a heads up for language, as always, and (also as always) comments and kudos are appreciated! Thanks to all y'all who've been following this over the past 20 or so hours.

Ezra was late to school, which had never happened before. His bike had gotten a flat tyre and he’d had to drop it at the nearest repair shop and walk the rest of the way. And it was still raining, which did nothing to improve his mood.

A car drove by him going far faster than could possibly be advisable in central London on a Thursday morning. Ezra didn’t even bother to look up, just pulled the hood of his coat a little further down over his forehead and hunched his back against the wind. The brakes of the speeding car squealed as the driver brought it to a screeching halt a few meters down the road.

“Oi! Angel, is that you?”

_That_ caught Ezra’s attention. Sure enough, Crowley was half-hanging out of his car window, hand (fairly ineffectively) covering his hair, peering through the rain towards Ezra.

“Erm,” said Ezra, who had inexplicably stopped walking and was staring towards the Bentley. “Yes. Hello, Crowley.” Crowley’s immaculately-dressed upper body disappeared through the window, and the Bentley reversed down the street to where Ezra was still seemingly frozen to the sidewalk. A passing car honked in irritation and the driver yelled a rude word out of the window, but Crowley just shrugged and raised an eyebrow at Ezra.

“Well? Aren’t you getting in?”

Ezra had thought that Crowley was going to tease him a little or at the very most offer him an umbrella. What he had not been anticipating was Crowley offering him a ride, and that fact was very obvious.

“In… in your car?” he stammered, blue eyes widening in shock.

“Yes, you stupid sodding idiot,” said Crowley, leaning across the car to unlock the passenger side door. He either didn’t see Ezra flinch at his use of language or decided not to concern himself with it.

“I’m all wet,” Ezra said, helplessly gesturing down at himself.

“I do _have_ eyes, you know, angel. Even if you can’t see them.” Since Crowley offered no protest, Ezra pulled the car door open and sat down heavily on the leather seat, wincing as water droplets splashed onto Crowley’s spotless dashboard.

“Sorry.”

“What for?” Crowley had started driving again, which was making Ezra second-guess his decision to accept the ride. Ezra’s grip on the edge of his seat tightened as the Bentley blew a stop sign and took a sharp right turn.

“I’ve got your car wet.”

Crowley shrugged, one hand on the steering wheel, the other messing with the dials on the radio. “It’ll dry, angel.”

The conversation died for a few minutes as Crowley had begun trying to cause as many near-fatalities as possible and Ezra had squeezed his eyes shut for fear of becoming one of them. Finally, after five or so minutes of manic joy on Crowley’s part and abject terror on Ezra’s, the Bentley careened onto a side street and the ride lost all (well, most) of its excitement. Ezra slowly opened his eyes, noted that they probably only had a few minutes at most before they arrived at school, and decided to try his hand at a small conversation.

Unfortunately for Crowley, Ezra’s conversation skills had never really been developed, and so the only thing Ezra could think to say was “So, I noticed you weren’t at school yesterday.”

Crowley gave a non-committal grunt and kept driving.

“I was looking for you because you told me to send you the address of the coffee shop, but I don’t have your phone number, so I had it written down and was going to give it to you, but I couldn’t find you,” Ezra said quickly. His palms were unreasonably sweaty, so he wiped them on his jeans (which were wet, so it didn’t help) before forging ahead. “I thought maybe I’d just missed you, so I checked at the office and they said you’d not come in.”

“The office told you that?” The slight tilt of Crowley’s head indicated that yes, he probably had heard all of what Ezra had said and had just chosen to focus on that particular bit.

“Y-yes, they like me. I’ve helped with filing and things before.” At Crowley’s chuckle, Ezra busied himself with picking at his cuticles, noting that he was in desperate need of a manicare.

“Of course you’ve helped them with filing, angel. _Of course_ you have.” Crowley laughed again, but it seemed to be less cruel than usual. He pulled the Bentley into the car park, taking up two spaces instead of one (which Ezra was tempted to comment on but didn’t do because Crowley had been kind enough to give him a ride).

Both boys climbed out of the Bentley, one with a practiced grace and the other with a bit of a stumble. Ezra tugged his bag over his shoulder and turned to thank Crowley only to find him popping open the boot of the car to remove what appeared to be a large beach towel. Crowley wiped the passenger seat and the dashboard of his car with the towel, then shut the door and patted the top of the Bentley in a way that would have been loving if Crowley believed himself capable of such a thing. He tossed the towel back into the boot, locked the car, and then turned around and bumped into Ezra.

“The hell are you still doing here? You’re late, you know,” he grumbled, rubbing his chest where it had collided with Ezra’s collar bone.

Ezra blinked for a moment before realizing that he wasn’t actually sure why he’d waited for Crowley. So, in lieu of a suitable answer, he shrugged and began walking towards the school, rushing a little to keep pace with Crowley’s longer legs.

“I wasn’t feeling well yesterday. Didn’t mean to miss a tutoring session,” Crowley said as they stepped through the front door, sauntering over to the front desk and signing his name on the pad with a flourish. After all, what else would Crowley have said? “Oh, sorry I was gone yesterday! I have a crush on you and it’s killing me, so I drank until I blacked out and then woke up with a bloody terrible hangover and spent an hour hugging the toilet before going back to sleep”? No.

Ezra was none the wiser as to what had really gone on, but he was utterly gobsmacked that Crowley had shared anything about his personal life at all, and so he stood dripping in the doorway for a good minute or two after Crowley had gone to class.

“Ezra, are you going to come check in?” Mrs. Hughes peered at him over the desk, reminding him that he was _late to school_ , for God’s sake. He signed his name in a hurry and bolted down the hallway; the track coach saw him running and wondered if he’d underestimated that Seraff boy’s athletic abilities.

Before long, it was lunch, and Ezra was doing what he was always doing (reading with one hand, eating a ham sandwich with the other) with the people he was always doing it with (Adam, a scrawny American transfer student who’d never bothered to make friends, and Anathema, who hated school because of all of the propaganda and would have much preferred to be at home practicing aura reading). None of the three ever spoke to each other much because the only thing they had in common was that they each had no one else to sit with.

Ezra’s face was so close to his book that if it had slammed shut of its own accord, it would have knocked off his glasses and broken his nose, so it wasn’t surprising that he didn’t see Crowley waltz up and lean against the edge of the table. In fact, he only realized Crowley was there because Adam had poked him in the bicep and said “Hey, that hipster guy is staring at you.”

He fumbled with his book for a second and flinched when it hit the table with a heavy thunk. Hands that were quite suddenly book-less buried themselves in his blond curls, and he felt the heat of an embarrassed blush flood his face. Crowley was just standing there, an amused smirk on his face; it took Ezra a moment to realize that Crowley was holding a piece of paper in his long fingers.

“What’s that?” Silently, Ezra prayed that his face would cool off so Crowley would stop smiling like the cat who’d got the cream.

“You said you didn’t have my number, so here it is.” Crowley dropped the piece of paper on top of Ezra’s book and walked back to where his friends were laughing and yelling rude things at each other.

Anathema sighed. “He’s quite pretty. It’s a shame he swings his hips so much when he walks, though; he thinks he looks cool, but he looks stupid.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Ezra said, immediately clapping his hands over his mouth and blushing even harder than before. Anathema stared at him for a second as if she were trying to stare into his soul (which, knowing Anathema, she might have been) before she shrugged and left the table, presumably headed to go do something vaguely occult-ish in the girl’s loo.

“Dude,” said Adam, who had looked up from his phone and popped out an earbud long enough to poke Ezra in the arm again. “Anathema’s hot.” Without waiting for a reply, Adam replaced his earbud and clicked resume on whatever he’d been watching.

Ezra thought about that for a moment. He’d known Anathema for years; she was arguably the closest thing he had to a friend. And yet, he’d never found her attractive… but hey, to each his own. He reached down to pick up his book, having forgotten about the small slip of paper until he saw it again.

Below the messily-written phone number was the following:

_If you wanted my number, angel, you should have just asked ;)_  
_-C_

For reasons that Ezra couldn’t quite pinpoint, that little wink did funny things to his insides. He brushed that aside and punched the number into his phone, sending the following text:

_I didn’t want it, you told me to send you the address and I realized I didn’t have it._  
_-Ezra_

As an afterthought, he sent a follow-up that just said _but thank you._

Had Ezra not gotten up from his table just then, he would have seen Crowley pull his phone from the pocket of his too-tight jeans and give it a little smile. Unfortunately, by the time this happened, Ezra was already down the hall in the library because he had twelve minutes before the start of class and was going to use them to do some reading in peace, thank you very much.

But Crowley _had_ smiled at Ezra’s text. Furthermore, he’d added Ezra’s contact to his phone under the name Angel, which made Ezra the very first contact to ever be added by anything other than a surname. Crowley went by his surname, so he called everyone around him by their surnames as well. Everyone, that is, except for Ezra Seraff.

Ezra’s phone vibrated in his pocket. When he checked it, he found a message from Crowley:

_Send me the bloody address, angel._

So he did. And he definitely did _not_ smile while doing it.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After this, I think we can safely say that they're friends. First big fight and a few sweet gestures, plus Crowley being a flirtatious prick because he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second part of the big mess, and I'm rather happy with how it turned out. Next chapter will deal with some more serious stuff, so I guess gear up for that. 
> 
> Thanks to all of you who have been reading this! Kudos and comments welcome and loved, as always. 
> 
> Heads up for language (this will be a constant with most of my work, I think).

After a rather lengthy but intellectually stimulating discussion with his English teacher, Ezra finally left school for the day. It had stopped raining hours ago, but the skies were still grey as he crossed the street and headed for the coffee shop. He was due to meet Crowley there for tutoring in just under an hour, and it was definitely at least that long of a walk, so he picked up the pace a bit and hoped to God he wouldn’t be a sweaty mess when he got there. Compared to Crowley’s impeccable hair and clothes, Ezra always looked like a slob, but he wasn’t keen on making the contrast any more obvious. He sighed, combing his fingers through his curls again and debating pulling off his coat to avoid overheating.

For the second time in a single day, a sleek black vintage Bentley pulled up next to him, halting traffic and causing several angry drivers to yell and make rude hand gestures. Crowley was, as always, unbothered by this; he was leaning across the car and cranking down the window with the type of concentration that Ezra rather wished he would give his schoolwork.

“Angel, what are you doing?” Crowley had succeeded at opening the window and was looking at Ezra with an expression that can only be described as an even blend between feigned disinterest and genuine concern.

“Walking.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yes, you prat, I can see that. _Why_ are you walking?”

“My bike’s in the shop, which is why I was late this morning when you gave me a ride.” This answer apparently did not satisfy Crowley, who made a rather exaggerated gesture towards the door. Ezra hesitated for only a moment before he pulled it open and dropped down into the seat, fastening his seatbelt and double-checking to make sure it was secure.

Crowley swerved back into the flow of traffic, nearly causing an elderly woman to rear-end a lorry. He laughed when Ezra winced and jerked the wheel on purpose, smiling smugly when Ezra clenched his hands into white-knuckled fists and muttered something that might have been a prayer.

“So, you don’t have a car, then?”

“No,” said Ezra, blue eyes wide and fixed on the road in front of him.

“Do your parents?”

“Yes, but they both work, so they can’t pick me up.”

“Siblings?”

“My brother Gabe works in the shop below our flat and my other brother lives in America.”

Crowley whistled. “Hoo. So you don’t have a ride at all, then?” Ezra shook his head and kept staring at the road like he was trying to steer the car telepathically.

Crowley’s next words practically fell out of his mouth, definitely without his say-so and infuriatingly with the finality that spoken words possess: “I can drive you around, if you want.”

The road suddenly was much less interesting, and Ezra fixed his blue eyes on Crowley. For his part, Crowley suddenly was much more interested in the road than he’d ever been in his life, and he was frowning as though he was wondering who had spoken (which, in a way, he was. He hadn’t been planning on saying what he said, and he wasn’t clear on whether or not he’d been in control of his body when he’d said it).

Because Ezra knew Crowley to be a proponent of cruel jokes and relentless teasing, he came to the conclusion that Crowley had obviously been having a go at him. This assumption made Ezra quite fantastically angry, something that Ezra couldn’t ever remember feeling quite so strongly before.

“You… you _bastard_.” Ezra was practically shaking with rage, and he relished the feel of an impolite word on his tongue. The sound of that word coming out of Ezra’s mouth made Crowley visibly jump, and he turned his head to look over at Ezra, who had continued talking. “That’s so _beyond_ cruel, do you understand that? Do you get that rubbing your wealth in the face of someone who doesn’t have enough money to buy a new bike - even though the old one keeps breaking down and he really needs a new one - is impossibly rude? And I know that you don’t like people riding in your car - even your friends, and I’m not your friend - so to try and bait me into saying yes to a nice thing just to turn around and mock me for it is… _evil_ , honestly. It’s horrible.”

To his horror, Ezra could feel hot tears sliding over his flushed cheeks. Not for the first time in his life, he wished he could be more of a man and hold in his emotions every once in a while. He was thrown against the car door when Crowley made a ninety-degree turn into the car lot of St. James’ Park.

“I wasn’t trying to be cruel,” Crowley said after a moment, smooth voice softer and more fragile than Ezra had ever heard it.

Ezra wasn’t buying any of that, though. No, sir. He was an emotional, effeminate guy, sure, but that didn’t mean he was an idiot. “Don’t defend yourself. A cruel joke is a cruel joke, Crowley.”

“It wasn’t a joke.” Crowley actually sounded sincere. “It was an offer. I was… I don’t know. Trying to be _nice_.” He spat the last word out like it had burned his tongue and turned away to look out the window. It might have been a trick of the afternoon light, but Ezra thought he saw Crowley shake a little.

It took Ezra a minute to collect his thoughts, during which time Crowley didn’t move a single muscle. Finally, “You were serious?”

Crowley nodded, still looking out the window. “Yeah.”

Another pause. “You’d drive me places?”

“If you want. I mean, you’ve been helping me with school and things, it’s the least I can do.” Ezra wasn’t sure why Crowley was still playing at being nonchalant; his image of a bad-ass, unfeeling Crowley had vanished within the last few minutes. What was left was a big grey ball of uncertainty (or, more precisely, Crowley without his armor - something that even Crowley didn’t understand).

Taking a slow, bracing breath, Ezra stretched his hand out and placed it on Crowley’s leather-clad forearm. “I think I owe you an apology, Crowley.”

“You owe me an answer first,” came the reply, sharp and biting. Ezra flinched away and shoved his hand back into his pocket.

“I’d like it if you could help me get to school and to the coffee shop for tutoring, please. At least until I get my bike back.” He tried for a little smile, hoping that somehow Crowley would feel it and turn around. Crowley didn’t, but he did twist in his seat so he was at least facing forward again.

“I can do that.”

“And I’m sorry for raising my voice at you,” Ezra continued, dropping his gaze to his lap. “I don’t do that, really. I guess I just assumed that you’d… do what you do to other people.”

“Not to you.” As to what _that_ meant, Ezra decided he’d probably never know. And then Crowley threw the Bentley into gear and sped off to the coffee shop. Other than a few simple directions from Ezra, the ride was silent. The radio stayed off, and Crowley didn’t say a word, but Ezra found he was a little relieved when Crowley’s usual smirk settled back onto his thin face. At least that was normal.

The shop Ezra had suggested was not much to write home about, but it would suffice as a tutoring spot. It was fairly quiet and well-lit enough, and the tables were not as sticky as they appeared at first glance. Having never actually been into a coffee shop, let alone this particular one, Ezra was oblivious to the coffee-shop-etiquette that customers should purchase a drink before emptying their life out onto the best table in the place (which was what Ezra was doing).

When he glanced up from his notes and textbooks, he saw Crowley at the counter. More accurately, he saw Crowley leaning against the counter in a way that couldn’t possibly be described as anything less than _deeply inappropriate_ , flirting shamelessly with the barista.

Something in Ezra’s chest clenched, but he pushed down the feeling and went back to sorting through his notes to find a section that Crowley had asked for help with. Despite his best efforts, though, his heart twinged a little when Crowley came over a few minutes later, holding two cups of drip coffee (one of which had a phone number written on it, but of course Ezra made a Herculean effort not to notice or comment on it).

“I figured you’d take yours with cream and sugar,” Crowley said. His bad-boy drawl was now firmly back in place, but he gave Ezra a tiny smile that hadn't been there before.

“Thank you.” Ezra gave him a similarly small smile in reply. He dumped the whole container of cream and four packets of sugar into his coffee, well aware that Crowley had stifled a laugh by taking an overly ambitious sip of black coffee.

“Did you want some coffee with your cream and sugar, angel?”

Ezra took a hesitant sip of his (now very blond) coffee and tried his best not to make a face. “I, erm, don’t like coffee.” He could tell that Crowley was rolling his eyes behind those dark sunglasses, so he tried to recover a bit. “But thank you, really. It’s kind of you to think of it.”

Crowley laughed a little and flapped a hand in Ezra’s direction. “Don’t mention it.”

After an hour or so of work, Ezra’s coffee had gone cold, and Crowley was halfway through his third cup. Mandy, the barista Crowley had apparently taken a shine to, kept coming over to give Crowley free refills and ask Ezra if he’d like anything else to drink. Because Ezra knew that _his_ drinks wouldn’t be free, he had politely declined the offer every time.

“Out of curiosity, angel,” Crowley said to the practice exam he was revising, “why did you suggest a coffee shop if you don’t like coffee?”

Ezra shrugged and pointed with his pen to a mistake Crowley had made. “I assumed they’d have tea.”

Crowley fixed the mistake and moved on to the next question. “I assume they do have tea.” Ezra didn’t feel it necessary to reply to that. “Hang on, though. You assume? I thought this was your local shop? Why are you assuming things?”

A little heat flashed across Ezra’s cheeks, but he decided honesty was still the best policy. “I’ve never been here before.”

Of course, it was at that moment that Mandy made her next trip over to the table to top off Crowley’s coffee. Again she asked Ezra if he wanted anything, and again Ezra said no.

But Crowley said yes and ordered Ezra a tea.

“How do you take your tea, babe?” Mandy had directed this at Ezra, who had never been called “babe” by anyone before in his life and was understandably flustered about it.

“Erm… splash of cream and two sugars, please.” Mandy nodded, wrote something on her pad, winked at Crowley, and went to get the tea. She was back a few minutes later, and Ezra was so busy contemplating Crowley’s behavior - and Mandy’s, and his own - that he’d completely forgotten to pay attention to what Crowley was doing. Mandy set the tea down in front of him, and Crowley slipped her a ten-pound note and flashed her a smile.

It took a moment for that to register with Ezra, but when it did, he was taken aback.

“Crowley,” he asked slowly, “did you just pay for my tea?” He reached across the table, finally remembering that he was supposed to be correcting Crowley’s work, and made a couple of marks next to questions Crowley had missed.

“Yes.”

“I can pay for my own tea.”

“I’m sure.” Crowley seemed uninterested in Ezra’s protests, so Ezra stopped making them.

“Thank you,” he said, taking a small sip of his tea, which was actually quite spot-on.

Crowley made that little “ngk” sound and went back to scribbling an answer that was mostly right, but Ezra didn’t miss the little smile.

Now that he knew to look for it, he rather doubted he ever would.

It got late and the shop closed, leaving Ezra standing next to Crowley on a dark London side-street. He checked his watch and sighed. Late for dinner, again. His father would probably have an aneurysm this time.

“See you tomorrow, Crowley.” He started down the street towards his family’s flat.

“You live close to here?” Crowley sounded mildly concerned, which made Ezra a very tiny, almost imperceptible, actually very large amount happier than he had been.

Ezra turned around and nodded. “Yeah.” Crowley nodded back and crossed the street, climbing into his Bentley and flooring it, tyres screeching around the corner.

That night at dinner, Ezra’s mum noticed something different. His brother Gabe guessed that he’d gotten a girlfriend, which Ezra flatly denied (he didn’t want a girlfriend anyway, not with his Oxford application coming due). When pressed by his father, though, Ezra considered his answer around a bite of pasta before saying that he thought he might have made a friend. His mum smiled at him, his dad hummed happily, and Gabe had thumped him on the back and reassured him that a girlfriend was the natural next step. Ezra had rolled his eyes at that and told Gabe to shut it, which had earned him an “Ezra John!” from his mother and a disapproving glare from his father. Ezra rather thought it was worth it, though, to see the look on Gabe’s face.

Before he fell asleep, Ezra texted Crowley his address and this message:

_If you can still pick me up tomorrow. If not it’s fine._

A few minutes passed, and then his phone buzzed on his nightstand.

_See you at eight, angel._

Ezra assumed (correctly) that it would be more like quarter-past, so he set his alarm for seven and fell asleep.

When he climbed into the car in the morning, Crowley wordlessly handed him a cup of something hot and turned the radio up. Tentatively, Ezra took a sip, and then he grinned at Crowley, who smiled his tiny smile and shook his head a little.

It was tea, with a splash of cream and two sugars.


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley meets Ezra's parents, which goes about as well as you'd expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry this took me a whole day to get up; I was busy with work and didn't have much of a chance to write. I struggled with this chapter a bit because it kept fighting with itself and me and wasn't being cooperative, but I think I got it into some sort of shape. 
> 
> Heads up for mild language and homophobia (the latter on the part of Ezra's father). 
> 
> Feel free to leave comments and kudos! I'd really love to hear what you think so far :)

“What kind of coffee shop isn’t open on a Sunday?”

They were standing outside the shop, staring at the locked door and dark windows, suddenly very uncertain of what to do. Well, Crowley was enjoying looking at Ezra in the reflection of the glass, and he wasn’t overly concerned with the revising he had to do, anyway. Ezra, however, was very concerned (which was not especially unusual because he was concerned about most things most of the time). He was trying to come up with another place to go so that he could help Crowley prepare for his chemistry exam - which was being given the next day and was why Crowley had driven across town on a Sunday afternoon - but couldn’t seem to think of any viable options.

Well, no viable options except one. One that would cause Ezra a lot of problems.

“I can go home, angel,” Crowley said. “This exam doesn’t matter too much, really, and you’ve been thinking so hard it’s made your face scrunch up.”

“You have to do well on this exam, Crowley.” Ezra took off his glasses and rubbed his temples. “You’re not going home.”

Crowley looked a little surprised at that, but recovered quickly with a smirk and some sarcasm. “Oh, so where else in this _absolutely lovely_ part of town should we go, then?”

Sighing, Ezra started walking down the street. “My flat.”

It’s probably important to note that there were other coffee shops in London that were open on Sundays. Also, there were a number of public libraries, all of which were didn’t close for at least a few hours. But Ezra didn’t frequent coffee shops, so he didn’t know of any others to go to (Crowley did and would have suggested one if he’d been asked, but he hadn’t been), and he knew that Crowley hated libraries. So, the only thing Ezra could think to do was take Crowley back to his family’s flat and study there, in his room.

When he’d gone a few steps without hearing the click of Crowley’s boots behind him, he turned around. Crowley was standing on the sidewalk, mouth hanging open, looking as though Ezra had just suggested that he strip off and run through the street completely starkers. This reaction gave Ezra a small measure of pride; he’d finally done something impulsive enough to shock Crowley.

“You want me to come to your flat with you?”

“Yes.”

Crowley scuffed the pavement with the toe of his boot. “Isn’t your family home?”

“Yes.” Ezra didn’t say this, but the reason he’d hesitated to suggest this plan was in fact because his family was home. His father especially would not be pleased to discover that not only had Ezra been tutoring _Anthony Crowley_ for the better part of a month - which had made him late to dinner on more than one occasion - he’d seen fit to invite Crowley over to the flat without asking permission first. Generally speaking, Ezra never did anything that even approached the line of disobedient, so he was even more anxious than he had been when he’d discovered that the shop was closed.

Crowley still hadn’t moved and was staring at Ezra with an unreadable expression. “Will your parents be alright with this, angel?”

Trying to seem as nonchalant as Crowley always did, Ezra shrugged. “Sure.”

That seemed to pacify Crowley a little. He sauntered over and followed a half-step behind as Ezra led him back to the Seraffs’ flat. Neither said a word to each other, and both were very nervous (although Crowley was, of course, doing a much better job of hiding it).

Ezra paused in front of an unassuming-looking door next to an apothecary, fumbling in his pocket for his keys. He could feel Crowley watching him. “Just a moment, sorry,” he muttered, relieved when his fingers finally brushed cool metal.

“Hey.” Crowley’s voice, softer and kinder than usual, cut through the panicked static in his head. “You don’t have to do this. I can study on my own; you’ve helped enough.”

“Oh, do come on, Crowley.” Ezra had gotten the key into the lock and swung the door open, giving his friend a tight smile and his best attempt at a reassuring look.

For the first time since Ezra had known him, Crowley looked uncomfortable. Ezra assumed that was because Crowley hadn’t been into the house of someone without much money before; in fact, it was because Crowley knew that Mr. Seraff had a reputation for being a man of great moral conviction (or, in other words, the type of man who usually called Crowley a faggot and told him to burn in hell).

“ _Really_ , now. I promise it’s not bad. We keep it clean.” Another tight smile and a wave of Ezra’s hand, and Crowley stepped inside. Ezra brushed past and made his way up the stairs, Crowley following a few steps behind.

“Mum,” Ezra called as he stepped through the door to the flat. “I’ve brought a friend over. We were supposed to meet at the shop for tutoring, but it was closed.”

“Oh!” There was a clatter of some kind in the kitchen followed immediately by Mrs. Seraff’s blond head poking around the corner. Her eyes settled immediately on Crowley, who was standing stiffly next to Ezra. A smile that had started out wide and bright faltered a little but corrected itself after a moment. Ezra was holding his breath and trying his best to keep his heart from jumping into his throat.

Crowley fidgeted a little and offered Ezra’s mum a little wave. “Erm, hello. I’m-”

“Anthony Crowley,” Mrs. Seraff said. “Yes, I know.” She gave Crowley another smile, this one warm and kind, and some of the tightness in Ezra’s chest went away. There was an awkward pause while his mum looked quizzically at Crowley’s sunglasses and Crowley tried very hard not to run out the front door; thankfully, Ezra broke the silence.

“We should go. Got to get to working, you know.” As he passed his mum, Ezra leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head, gesturing for Crowley to follow. Crowley did, but he paused in the kitchen doorway.

“Thank you for letting me come in, Mrs. Seraff,” Crowley said, offering a small smile before slipping out of the kitchen to join Ezra.

They’d been reviewing some difficult chemical equations for nearly an hour when Ezra’s door flew open. Ezra’s dad, a man with the stature of an American football player and the same piercing blue eyes as his son, loomed in the doorway. Ezra stood to meet him and didn’t notice the way Crowley flinched and curled into himself like a snake preparing to strike.

“I hear we have a guest, Ezra.” It wasn’t a question. Ezra gulped, mouth suddenly dry, and shoved his hands into his pockets in an effort to appear confident (it didn’t work).

“Yes, father. This is Crowley.”

Mr. Seraff grunted and looked Crowley over with a critical gaze, taking in the boy’s vibrant colored hair, flashy clothes, and dark tattoo. “Pleasure,” he finally said, his intonation establishing that he didn’t mean it in the slightest.

To Crowley’s credit, he had managed to stand and cross the room without trembling. To the bewilderment of both Seraff men (Ezra couldn’t believe that anyone could be so brave in front of his father, and Mr. Serraff hadn’t been expecting Crowley to have any manners), he stuck out a skinny hand and waited for Ezra’s father to shake it.

For a moment, Ezra almost thought his father was going to walk away, but then Crowley’s long fingers had wrapped around his dad’s palm and a quick handshake was accomplished. Mr. Seraff pulled his hand away, wiped it none-too-subtly on his slacks, and looked disapprovingly at Ezra.

“Your mother wants to know if Anthony will be staying for tea.”

“No,” Ezra said at the same time Crowley said “Yes.” Ezra’s father raised an eyebrow at both boys, and then turned to tell his wife that Ezra’s new friend would, in fact, be joining them for tea. To Ezra’s dismay, Crowley’s signature smirk was fixed on his face as he picked up a pencil to continue working on his chemistry packet.

“Why did you do that?” Ezra hissed, angrily drawing a line of red ink though an incorrect answer. Crowley just shrugged and gave Ezra a smile that was a bit too shark-like to be pleasant.

The first few minutes of tea were civil. Ezra’s mum had tried to make small talk with Crowley, but Crowley’s tendency toward one-word answers had put a stop to that fairly quickly. Ezra’s father never talked much at the table, and Ezra was too afraid to say anything that might upset the uneasy balance, so a slightly awkward silence had fallen.

Mr. Seraff set down his teacup and leaned back in his chair. “So, Anthony. I hear you’re a homosexual.”

Ezra promptly choked on his sandwich and made a noise like a strangled cat.

Crowley, however, took a polite sip of tea and said “Not quite, sir. I’m not entirely sure what I am, but I suppose bisexual might be close enough.” He pushed his dark glasses up the bridge of his nose and reached for a scone.

Ezra’s father made a disapproving sort of “hmph” and returned to his tea. Mrs. Seraff was staring at her husband with as much disapproval as if he’d asked the Prime Minister about his sex life, and Crowley was happily munching on his scone.

Ezra himself was trying not to faint. In the preceding thirty seconds, he’d witnessed his father provoke his only friend, watched that friend defend himself with casual confidence and only a little bit of disrespect, and learned that _Crowley liked boys_. This last thing was one that he would definitely have known had he paid any sort of attention to Crowley over the past five years of school, but he hadn’t, and so it was news. As it happened, Crowley had had a boyfriend in year eleven, and while that probably would have resulted in ridicule had Crowley been anyone else, Crowley was Crowley and so it was cool.

When tea was over, Crowley grabbed his bag from Ezra’s room, thanked Ezra’s mum, and left with a small smile and a “See you tomorrow, angel.” The moment the lock clicked shut behind him, Mr. Seraff rounded on Ezra.

“What are you thinking, bringing a smarmy git like that around here?” His nose was inches from Ezra’s and he had a fistful of Ezra’s jumper (not causing any harm, of course, but certainly giving Ezra a rather unhealthy dose of fear).

“He’s a friend,” Ezra shot back, voice shaky.

At that moment, something in Mr. Seraff’s mind clicked into place. “You’re not telling me that the friend you made last week is _Anthony bloody Crowley_?” His eyes had gone from blue to steel-grey, and all Ezra could manage to do was nod.

Instantly, the large hands vanished from Ezra’s chest and buried themselves in their owner’s hair. Ezra’s father was pacing the length of the sitting room, muttering to himself and occasionally raising his eyes to the ceiling. Mrs. Seraff wrapped an arm around Ezra’s broad shoulders, squeezing his bicep lightly in an attempt at comfort. It was a few minutes before Ezra’s father stopped wearing holes in the carpeting and dared to look at his son, but when he did, he looked as if he’d aged a decade.

“Ezra,” Mr. Seraff began slowly, “are you in a queer relationship with the Crowley boy?”

Hot blood rushed to Ezra’s cheeks. “ _No_.”

And with that, Ezra stormed out of the flat and ran into the darkening street, not caring where he went as long as it was far away from his father, his flat, and the pleasant smell of Crowley’s cologne that was hanging in the air of his bedroom.

He ended up in St. James’ Park. He was incredibly short of breath, his shirt and jumper were wet with a mix of sweat and the light drizzle of rain, and his glasses were all fogged up, but he felt a little better. With a sigh, he sat down on a bench and watched the ducks swim in the fading afternoon light.

Something in Ezra was _wrong_ , he could feel it. His mind felt fuzzy and muddled, and his head ached like he’d gone too long without drinking water (which he had, but that wasn’t what was giving him a headache). His thoughts kept drifting back to Crowley, which made him think of his father, which made him hear the echo of his own forceful “ _No_ ” in his ears. Ezra couldn’t quite come up with a word to match his emotions, and that was incredibly frustrating for a boy who prided himself on his mastery of the English language. It couldn’t be that he was feeling guilty, could it? No. He had nothing to feel guilty about, least of all telling the truth about his lack of a relationship with Crowley.

“I’m just tired,” Ezra said to the ducks. They didn’t reply (not because they were being rude, but because they were ducks), so he stood up, combed his fingers through his damp curls, and began walking home. He imagined his father would ask for an apology, so he decided it would be easier just to give him one. On the way, Ezra stopped at a grocery store and bought his mother some flowers to thank her for being kind to Crowley.

Across town in a sparsely decorated luxury home, Crowley was glaring at his house plants and getting drunk on cheap vodka, trying to get Ezra’s father’s words out of his head.

The next morning when Crowley pulled up to the kerb, Ezra practically ran to the car. “Hi,” he said. “I am so sorry about yesterday. I thought you might not have wanted to pick me up this morning, so I was on my way to unlock my bike - I got it back a couple days ago, by the way - when I saw you.” He wasn't quite sure why he'd said all of that, but he did usually tend to talk quickly when he was nervous.

Crowley grunted noncommittally and started driving, handing Ezra a cup of tea in silence. Ezra took a dainty sip and smiled a little, which he always did when Crowley brought him tea (which had been every school day except one since their first time studying at the coffee shop - Crowley had forgotten once because he’d woken up late after a night of binge-drinking and had been forced to take extra time getting ready as he’d spent twenty minutes vomiting into the toilet).

Ezra was staring at Crowley, blue eyes clear and bright and soft. “I defended you, you know,” he said quietly. “My father said something - it doesn’t matter what - and I ran away to the park for a bit, but when I got back I defended you. I told my father that your sexuali- who you like - oh, I don’t know what the right term is, so whatever… I told him that’s not his business and that he ought to leave you alone about it.”

Crowley smiled a little despite himself. “You ran away from your flat and then went back later?”

“I was angry and didn’t want to yell at my father.”

“Probably would have done some good if you had,” Crowley muttered. Ezra narrowed his eyes; it wasn’t that he agreed with his father or even really liked him, but he still had some measure of respect for him and thought Crowley should, too. However, given that his father had been rude to Crowley beyond all reasonable defence, Ezra decided not to say anything and settled for a disapproving glare.

“Anyway, I thought you ought to know,” said Ezra, looking down and picking at his cuticles again.

“Why?”

Ezra shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I guess I just thought you should know that I wasn’t just going to let me father get away with what he’d said.”

“No, angel.” Crowley sighed, making a swerving turn across two lanes of traffic and nearly causing the car behind him to hit a telephone pole. “Why did you defend me?”

It took a moment for Ezra to be sure he’d heard Crowley correctly. “Because you’re my _friend_ , Crowley.”

For the first time in a long while, Crowley felt a blush crawl over his high cheekbones. “Oh,” he said. “Good.”

Ezra gave him a wide megawatt smile and took another sip of tea.

“It’s funny, angel, but I think you might be the first person to actually call me a friend,” Crowley said after a minute, making an effort to keep his voice smooth and emotionless.

“What in heaven are you talking about?” Ezra’s delicate mouth was gaping open a little. “You have more friends than anyone else in school.”

Crowley shrugged and fiddled with the cassette player. “I’m just saying that none of them have ever said that I’m their friend. It might be implied, but they’ve never said it.”

“They’re rubbish friends, then,” Ezra said with such sudden conviction that Crowley almost smiled.

“You know something, angel?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t hate you as much as I thought I did.” Crowley cracked a tiny smile in Ezra’s direction, and it was Ezra’s turn to flush a little pink in the face.

“High praise.” Ezra had done his best at being sarcastic, but it had come out a bit more along the lines of flattered and flustered (which Crowley noticed with great interest). Crowley laughed his strange high-pitched laugh and turned up the volume on the cassette player. To his surprise, Ezra found that Crowley's laugh wasn't quite as irritating as it had once been. Rather than consider the implications of that, though, he contented himself with cranking down the window and closing his eyes, listening to the strains of classic rock and drinking in the scent of tea and expensive cologne.


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley does something that neither he nor Ezra ever thought he'd do, and Ezra learns a tiny bit more about Crowley's home life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this one is super short (just over a thousand words). I'm going to post the next one immediately after this because I did the thing where I wrote a ton and realized I needed to break it up around word 3,500. 
> 
> I hope you like it! Keep me posted on your thoughts, I love hearing from y'all! 
> 
> Especially huge shout out to those who have been following this since I started it a few days ago: I love y'all! Thanks for the support. 
> 
> Warning for mild language (I think? Maybe not).

It was the Thursday before the autumn holiday, and Ezra was sweating nervously, hunched over his laptop. The blue “Submit” button taunted him from the computer screen, so with shaky fingers, Ezra clicked it and waited for the web page to reload.

 _Success!_ the site proclaimed cheerily. _Thank you for applying to Oxford University. You will receive a confirmation email shortly._

He was still shaking when he climbed into the Bentley an hour later and accepted the proffered cup of tea. He smiled at Crowley as he always did but remained uncharacteristically silent. Crowley noticed, of course, and decided to tease him about it.

“What’s got your knickers in a twist, angel? Got a girlfriend or something?”

Ezra glared at him. “No.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s not like you care, Crowley. You’ll just have me on about it.” He huffed a little and turned his back to Crowley, who was looking at Ezra with a sort of frown.

“Go on, angel. What’s happened?” Crowley paused for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. “Is it… did your father say something about me?”

A look of shock registered on Ezra’s pale face, and his eyes softened. “What? No, he hasn’t said anything since the day you came for tea.”

Crowley gave a stiff nod at that and blew through a stop sign. Ezra wasn’t quite sure when over the past few weeks it had happened, but at some point he’d stopped fearing that he would die whenever he got into the Bentley. It was almost miraculous, really, that Crowley could drive like a chimpanzee on cocaine and never get into a single accident, but Ezra had decided not to question it. After all, why look a gift horse in the mouth?

It dawned on Ezra that Crowley hadn’t said anything because he was still waiting for Ezra to answer.

“I applied to Oxford this morning,” Ezra said, taking a calming drink of tea. “I don’t expect I’ll get in, of course, but I’d quite like to.”

Crowley made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “You’ll get in, angel. They’d have to be idiots to turn you away.”

Even though Ezra knew that Crowley was just trying to make him feel better, a little bit of anxiety uncoiled from his chest. Before he’d thought about it, his hand was on the cool leather of Crowley’s jacket.

“ _Thank you_ , Crowley.” He gave Crowley’s shoulder a little squeeze, which made the other boy stiffen and draw in a sharp breath. Ezra pulled his hand back. Crowley _had_ always seemed a little touch-averse, so Ezra wasn’t sure what had possessed him to do what he’d done. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have… I should have asked.”

“Don’t apologize.” Crowley looked as though he were trying to swallow a mouthful of sand. “It’s… you’re fine. People just don’t really touch me very often, is all. Not under normal circumstances, anyway.”

Ezra was confused. “Don’t your parents hug you?”

“No,” Crowley said, all traces of warmth gone from his voice. The muscles in Crowley’s face tightened almost imperceptibly, but Ezra noticed. He thought for a moment about asking a different question,  
but Crowley had said no with such finality that Ezra let it drop.

Apparently, Crowley was eager to change the topic of conversation. “Where else did you apply?” Ezra had applied to two universities in London as well as one in Glasgow and one in Cardiff, and he told Crowley this. Crowley hummed a little bit but didn’t offer anything more in the way of a response, prompting Ezra to ask the (in his opinion, fairly obvious) follow-up question.

“Where did you apply, Crowley?”

Crowley’s laugh filled the Bentley. “Really, angel. Do I strike you as the type of bloke who’s _at all_ interested in going to uni?”

“I suppose not,” muttered Ezra, suddenly overcome with the strong desire to jump out of the moving vehicle in the interest of preserving the final shreds of his dignity.

Crowley was still chuckling when they arrived at school. Checking his watch, Ezra noticed something odd and stared in bewilderment at Crowley’s retreating back.

“Crowley,” Ezra asked, jogging a little to catch up to his friend. “We’re on time. We’ve always been on time, except for that first time when my bike had gotten a flat.” The only reply was an arched eyebrow and a little head shake, a gesture that clearly meant _So what?_ in the language of Crowley’s-facial-expressions.

Ezra wasn’t deterred by the lack of response; he’d gotten used to Crowley’s non-verbal cues weeks before. “Before you started picking me up, you were late to school every day. The ladies at the office know you by name because you were late so often, and the headmaster tried to get you kicked out after you’d been late for a month straight.” Crowley’s lips twitched a little at that. “Seriously, though, Crowley. Why haven’t we been late?”

“I might have made a habit of being rather fashionably late, angel, but you never did.” With a small smile, Crowley strode down the hall to his first period class, leaving Ezra standing alone in the courtyard with an inexplicable grin on his face.

Ezra had stopped overthinking that comment (well, not _stopped_ precisely… more like forced himself to slow down his overthinking) by the time lunch rolled around. He was sitting with Adam and Anathema, as per usual, when a tall shadow fell over the table. Crowley was standing there with one of his hands jammed into his pocket, the other one holding what looked like a rather thick packet of paper. Ezra snapped his book shut so quickly he nearly caught his fingers.

“Hello, geeks,” Crowley said in his traditional bored-sounding drawl. “I’m going to steal the angel there away from you for a moment.” This was punctuated by a slight head tilt, and then Crowley swaggered out of the room.

Anathema was staring at Ezra. “Are you and Crowley, like… friends?”

“Yes,” said Ezra, snatching up his book and knapsack before Anathema had a chance to comment. When he entered the empty hallway, he saw Crowley leaning against the wall with his head tilted toward the ceiling, whistling something to himself.

“Library” was the only thing that Crowley said before spinning on the heel of his boot and walking away. Ezra followed him, confused and mildly afraid that Crowley had failed his exam or worse, had decided not to be friends with him anymore. When they got to the library, Crowley sat down at the nearest table and gestured for Ezra to do the same.

Crowley’s hands were shaking ever so slightly when he placed the papers - which were an exam, Ezra’s guess had been correct - on the table. He leaned back and waited.

Ezra couldn’t believe his eyes. There, marked on the top of the first page in red ink, was the number 84. He double checked the name and nearly fell out of his chair when he saw Crowley’s scratched there in barely-legible penmanship.

“This is that chemistry exam,” Crowley informed him. “The one you helped me revise for when the shop was closed last week.”

“I… I can see that.” Ezra hadn’t quite recovered from his shock and was still goggling at the number as if expecting it to change. A smirk had settled onto Crowley’s face; at first glance, it looked like the same mischievous one as always, but upon closer examination it held rather a lot more pride than usual.

“I don’t remember the last time I’ve gotten a grade that high,” Crowley said under his breath. “Not sure I ever have, really. Shadwell thought I’d cheated.”

“This is a _first class grade_ , Crowley,” Ezra whispered (although whether he was whispering out of respect for library policy or out of awe wasn’t clear to either of them).

“I know. If you tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you,” Crowley said casually. “I’m rather annoyed with you, actually, because now Shadwell knows that I have ‘potential’ or some bollocks, so I’ve got to keep it up.”

The only thing Ezra could think to say was “Watch your language,” which made Crowley laugh so loudly that the librarian came over and asked both of them to leave. If he had been thinking clearly at all, Ezra probably would have been very embarrassed that he’d been asked to leave, but he was too busy blushing and trying to get Crowley to stop laughing to care.


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's autumn break, and our boys run into each other in the park. Things get rather eventful, and Ezra has a much-overdue revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so yes, Ezra has finally figured his shit out a little bit. Also, Crowley's home life is discussed briefly and the truth about his parents alluded to (but we'll get into that in a later chapter). 
> 
> I hope this works! It took me a while to figure out how to write Ezra's realization, so I'd love to hear what you think!
> 
> My sincerest love and thanks to all who are taking the time to read this. 
> 
> Heads up for language and allusions to bad situations at home (nothing abuse-related, but a broken home nonetheless).

“I’m just saying, Ez. You should put yourself out there.” Gabe grabbed a barely-cooled biscuit off of the tray on the stove and stuffed it into his mouth, holding a second one out to Ezra. “It’s autumn holiday, for Pete’s sake! You should call that girl - the one with the funny name who eats with you at lunch. Buy her dinner or take her to the cinema or something.”

Ezra took a small bite of his biscuit. “Anathema? No, she fancies someone else.” He wasn’t entirely sure if this was true, but it was easier than telling Gabe and his mum that in all the time he’d known her, he’d never thought she was cute.

Mrs. Seraff batted Gabe’s hand away from the tray of biscuits and fixed Ezra with a gentle, sympathetic look. “I’m sure there’s someone for you, honey.”

“Yes, but you’ll never find her if you don’t-”

“ _Gabriel_. Stop tormenting your brother and go to work, you’re going to be late!” She shooed Gabe out of the kitchen with a flick of a dish towel and turned back to look at Ezra. “Don’t let him get to you, dear. He’s just trying to help.”

Since his mouth was full of biscuit, Ezra just rolled his eyes. He jumped down from where he had been sitting on the counter and gave his mother a kiss before walking down the hall to his bedroom. His newest book was waiting for him.

For quite possibly the first time in his life, Ezra found that he couldn’t focus on the book in front of him. He’d read the same passage six times and still had no idea what it meant. St. Monica’s autumn holiday had begun, and Ezra had been disappointed when he’d woken up that morning and realized that he wouldn’t be seeing Crowley. That feeling had settled in the pit of his stomach and stuck around all day, and Ezra couldn’t quite figure out why.

“He’s my only friend,” Ezra said out loud, talking to his book and the walls and the small stuffed dog on his bookshelf. “That’s why I’m missing him. That’s the only reason.” To his dismay, that pronouncement didn’t make him feel any better. He went back to the book. A few minutes (and three more failed attempts at reading the same paragraph) later, Ezra shut the book and placed it on his bedside table. He grabbed his cream-colored coat off the hook by the door and told his mum that he was headed out for a walk.

Standing outside on the pavement, Ezra thought about where to go. He didn’t really feel like going to the library; he hadn’t been able to read at home, so why would he go somewhere else just to fail there, too? Briefly, the idea of the coffee shop crossed his mind, but he quickly shut it down. Too much Crowley there. After a little while of suggesting things and rejecting them, Ezra decided that St. James’ Park would suffice. A little bit of Crowley in the car park, but not so much that it would feel wrong to be there without him. Perfect.

Ezra had stopped into a bakery and bought a half loaf of day-old bread to give to the ducks, and he was feeding them quite happily from an empty bench when someone sat down next to him.

“Excuse me,” he said softly and turned to face the man to his left. The words “I’m trying to be alone, could you possibly go somewhere else, please?” died in his throat as he took in the sight of Crowley’s smirking face. “Oh! Hello, Crowley.” He couldn’t stop the grin from breaking out across his face.

“Hi.”

A hundred questions flew through Ezra’s mind, but none seemed right, so he hummed happily and went back to feeding the ducks.

“They’ll never leave you alone now, you know,” chuckled Crowley. “You’ve locked yourself in. Can’t ever come back here without being harassed.”

Ezra finished throwing the last crumbs to a nice-looking mallard. “And how would you know that?”

“I’ve watched people do this long enough to know.” Crowley’s lanky denim-clad legs were stretched in front of him in a wide v-shape, which was most certainly not a modest position. When he noticed this, Ezra blushed (and then chastised himself, because _really_. What was that all about?) and stood up, brushing his hands on his khakis. Crowley stood, too, his motions fluid and beautiful next to Ezra’s jerky ones.

They walked along the pond in comfortable silence for a while. At one point, Crowley had stopped at an ice-cream cart and bought himself a red frozen lolly, which he proceeded to suck on in a rather obscene way for the better part of ten minutes. When he’d finished it, he snapped the stick in half and dropped it on the ground.

“Honestly, Crowley,” Ezra sighed, bending down to pick up the broken wood. “There’s a bin right here.” He dropped it into the bin, which was actually less than three feet from where Crowley had tossed the stick.

Crowley gave him a little smile and made his little “ngk” sound in the back of his throat. He kept walking, and Ezra fell back into step beside him.

The sun had begun to set by the time Crowley spoke. “So, angel. No fun plans for autumn holiday?”

Ezra flushed a little and stared at his shoes (which he’d found at the thrift shop the week before - they were brown loafers with little tassels). “Haven’t got the money to go anywhere.”

“Oh,” said Crowley. He scratched the back of his neck. “Right.”

“I’m surprised you’re here, though,” Ezra said quickly. “Thought you’d’ve gone to the south of France like everyone else.”

“No one to go with.”

“What about your parents?” As soon as he’d said it, Ezra regretting asking. Crowley stopped walking and turned to face the pond, shoving his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans and very pointedly not looking at Ezra. 

“They’re… away, at the moment.” Crowley’s voice was hard and cold, emotionless to the extreme. If Ezra had been wise, he would have seen the barely concealed anger and stopped asking questions.

Ezra, as it happened, was not particularly wise in this respect. “For how long?”

Crowley shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Do they do that often? Just leave without telling you when they’ll be back?”

“No,” Crowley replied, kicking at the gravel with the toe of his boot. “Just the once.”

A horrible thought broke its way into Ezra’s mind. “Crowley,” he began slowly, as if trying not to spook a startled animal. “When did your parents leave?”

“Fucking _hell_ , angel! What’s with all the personal questions?” Crowley had spun around in an instant. Even though he really was only an inch or two taller, he seemed to tower over Ezra. His top lip had curled itself into a sneer, and his perfect white teeth were bared in a snarl.

It was terrifying. Ezra stumbled backwards; he bumped into a woman pushing a pram but was too unsettled to remember to apologize. He stood frozen in the middle of the path and stared at Crowley with wide blue eyes, unsure whether to run or brace himself for a blow to the jaw.

Something close to remorse flickered across Crowley’s face, and he relaxed a little.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” It was gentler than Ezra remembered Crowley sounding before, and it seemed to almost be an apology. Still, though, the hairs on the back of Ezra’s neck were standing up, and his legs were itching to make a run for it.

“You’re not?” Ezra winced at the sound of his own voice, high and squeaky and utterly pathetic.

“No.” One of Crowley’s hands emerged from his pocket, and he placed it very softly on Ezra’s shoulder. Ezra couldn’t contain the little shudder that ran down his spine, but if Crowley noticed, he didn’t say anything about it.

“Alright.” They started walking again, Crowley’s sauntering gait slowing a little so Ezra didn’t have to try so hard to keep up. Before either of them realized what they were doing, they were standing in front of the Bentley.

Crowley’s hand paused on the door handle, and his warm breath sent a little cloud of white into the air. “Would you maybe like to go to dinner?”

Ezra blinked at Crowley, baffled. “Now?”

“We don’t have to, it was just an idea.” If Ezra hadn’t known better, he might have said Crowley was actually flustered… but of course, he knew better than that. “At least let me drive you home; it’s getting dark and you’ll be late for dinner if you walk.”

“No, I’d like to go to dinner. With you, I mean.” Ezra reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile, texting his mum to say that he’d met up with a friend and would be home later. He didn’t feel the need to specify which friend; after the conversation in the kitchen, she would probably assume he’d taken Gabe’s advice and asked Anathema out.

When Ezra looked up from his phone, Crowley was leaning against the car and beaming. “Alright then, angel, get on with it then,” he teased, popping open the door and sliding into the driver’s seat. “I’ve seen glaciers move faster than you.”

Crowley would rather have been burned at the stake than confess this, of course, but his heart had done a funny sort of jump when Ezra had agreed to dinner. In his mind, he told himself that it was just a friendly thing; he reminded himself that Ezra was a very platonic kind of bloke and probably liked girls anyway; he tried very hard to stop his heart pounding against his ribcage, but his heart wasn’t interested in listening to him, so he decided to go all out and try to be impressive.

“Say, angel. Have you ever been to the Ritz?”

Ezra’s eyebrows jumped so far up his forehead that they almost touched his blond curls. “What?”

“The Ritz. Ever been?”

“No, of course not! Honestly, Crowley, you’ve seen where I live… even if I could afford it, you think the Ritz would allow the likes of me to dine there?” Ezra huffed a little at the reminder of the vast class difference between himself and Crowley.

Crowley gave him a once-over from the other side of the car. “You look fine. They’ll let us in.”

“Wait, Crowley, _no_.”

Whatever Crowley had been expecting to happen, a rejection wasn’t it. “ _What_?”

Ezra’s face was uncomfortably hot, and he shifted in his seat. “I can’t afford to eat there, as I’ve said. It’s kind of you, but… I can’t. Sorry.” His gaze dropped from Crowley’s sunglasses to his own hands. He scraped a bit of dirt out from under his fingernails and waited for Crowley to yell or curse or do something else, but that didn’t happen.

“I don’t have to pay to eat there. My great-great-grandfather was the architect; my family’s got free meals forever.” Crowley had completely stopped watching the road, which meant that he was actually causing fewer near-accidents than usual. “I can bring a guest.”

Ezra kept picking at his fingernails and didn’t say anything.

“If it makes you that uncomfortable, though, we can go somewhere else. Maybe get a Chinese or takeaway chips.”

“We can go to the Ritz, if you want.” Ezra was still staring at his lap, but something approaching a smile crossed his lips for a moment.

“Not if you don’t.”

“No,” said Ezra with a little more enthusiasm. “Let’s.”

Crowley allowed himself to grin at his friend again. “Alright. Let’s.” And then he started watching the road again and promptly caused a cyclist to hit the kerb and fall off her bike. Ezra didn’t see this happen because he was thinking very hard about what Crowley had done: Crowley, who had a reputation for being a selfish, stuck-up bastard, had offered to go to dinner wherever Ezra wanted because he didn’t want to make Ezra uncomfortable. Crowley, the “smarmy git” that Ezra’s father hated, was _taking Ezra to dinner at the bloody Ritz_ just because he could. And he’d said “we can go somewhere else,” a perfect echo of what Ezra had said to him over a month ago in the library.

The sound of a thumping bass beat shook Ezra out of his thoughts. Crowley was tapping his hands on the steering wheel, singing (rather terribly) along to _Another One Bites the Dust_ by Queen, skinny shoulders moving in small circles and red hair bouncing as his head nodded up and down. Ezra decided that he looked rather beautiful.

“Are you ready, hey, are you ready for this?” sang Crowley, jostling his leg against the door.

 _Oh_ , thought Ezra suddenly, realization slamming into him with the force of a two-ton lorry.

“Are you hanging on the edge of your seat…”

 _Oh, no. Please, no_.

“Out of the doorway, the bullets rip to the sound of the beat…” Crowley punctuated the last syllable with a particularly hard smack of the steering wheel and threw Ezra a tiny smile.

 _This is really rather inconvenient,_ Ezra muttered in his mind.

“Another one bites the dust,” Crowley shouted.

Ezra sighed. _Yes, I suppose one does_. It wasn’t really that he hadn’t known why people developed crushes on Crowley; in fact, he was aware that mostly everyone had done at some point and could even see the appeal of Crowley’s high cheekbones and perfect hair. He just hadn’t been aware that he himself had fallen victim to Crowley’s charms.

“Oh, God,” he whispered to himself as Crowley belted the last few lines of the chorus, burying his head in his hands. “This is not good.”


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinner is had at the Ritz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright! Just a bit of our boys being soft. The next chapter is going to be fairly rough from an emotional standpoint, so I thought we should have some fluffiness before all of that. 
> 
> thank you x a million to everyone who's set aside the time to read this! I adore you all. 
> 
> It's been so fun interacting with y'all in the comments, and I appreciate the kudos and your kind words! Please, feel free to share this story with others if you feel so inclined. 
> 
> Warnings here for alcohol consumption and mild language.

Ezra was sitting primly at the table, hands folded in his lap. He was just watching everyone, wide eyes growing wider with every passing moment, and the other guests were starting to wonder why on earth that strange boy with the ugly clothes looked as if he were about to faint.

“Angel,” Crowley said, flicking through the wine list in a manner that indicated he was searching for something in particular. “Are you alright?” When they’d arrived at the Ritz, the hostess had been skeptical, which had meant she’d been rude. Crowley had asked (none too politely, to Ezra’s chagrin) to speak to the man in charge; after a series of interrogation-style questions and an overly thorough check of Crowley’s ID, the manager was sufficiently convinced that Crowley was who he said. This, of course, was cause for great embarrassment on the part of the hostess and the manager - after all, it’s a great offence to insult the great-great-grandson of the man who built the place in which one is employed, even if the insulting had been done in the interest of not giving away a free meal. Crowley had sprawled himself out on the couch in the manager’s office, a satisfied smirk on his face while he listened a superfluous amount of apologies and haughtily accepted the promise of the best table.

All of this had culminated in Ezra being even more anxious than before, and coupled with his newfound revelation about his best friend, Ezra was rather struggling to keep his brain functioning. So, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he didn’t hear Crowley’s question.

“Oi.” Crowley set the wine list down and poked Ezra in his tartan-jumper-covered shoulder. Ezra, who had been staring intently at a waiter who was serving something that looked like an entire lobster, startled and slammed his knee into the table.

He flushed a very vibrant shade of pink and began apologizing under his breath. “So sorry… such an idiot… making a scene… sorry.” Ezra was refusing to meet Crowley’s eyes, too embarrassed to face his smooth-talking, sharply-dressed, upper-class companion.

“Oh, come on, angel,” sighed Crowley, grabbing Ezra by the elbow and dragging him out of the dining room into the adjacent hallway. Ezra was pushed down gently onto a nearby settee, and Crowley waved off a member of the hotel staff who had begun to make his way over to help.

“Even _this_ is expensive,” Ezra finally said, touching the plush fabric lightly with the tips of his fingers. “Crowley, if I sold this piece of furniture, I could buy a new bike.” His voice was shaky, he could feel it catching in his throat, but he was too embarrassed about everything else to worry about that.

Very suddenly, Crowley’s slender hands were braced on either side of his hips, and he could feel Crowley’s breath on his face. “Look at me, please, angel.” As always, Crowley sounded calm. No, more than that; he sounded like he _belonged_.

Ezra shook his head. “I don’t fit in here, Crowley. I don’t know what to do!” With great effort and a little false bravado, he raised his head and saw his own face reflected in the dark lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses. Oddly, Crowley was looking at him with an expression that bordered on genuine concern, so Ezra decided to just go ahead and come out with it. “I don’t know which fork to use. I don’t know what anything on the menu actually is, and I certainly don’t know anything about the wine! I’m sure certain things pair better with certain wines, but _I don’t know_ what those pairings are!”

Crowley just raised an eyebrow. “So?”

“ _So?_ That’s all you have to say? Crowley, listen to me.” Unbidden, Ezra’s hands had established a too-tight grip on the lapels of Crowley’s leather jacket (which he had refused to give to the coat attendant because he was Crowley and could do what he wanted), and Ezra tugged Crowley even closer. Their noses were practically touching, but Ezra was too worried to notice or care. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I stick out! Everything is so clean and nice and expensive, and I’m just… I’m just _me_. Just Ezra, the bookish son of working-class parents who wears clothes that are too loose, has to catch rides with his only friend, and certainly doesn’t know how to behave in a place like this.”

The proximity of their faces might have escaped Ezra’s notice, but it hadn’t escaped Crowley’s. Due to the fact that he was focused on bringing his heart rate down to an acceptable level for fear that Ezra might feel it through his shirt, the words that slipped out of Crowley’s mouth did so without his permission.

“I don’t think you’re _just_ anything,” Crowley whispered.

Now _that_ got Ezra’s attention. “W- what?”

Crowley stepped back, cheeks burning, and did his best to recover. “You’re my guest, and if any one of these rich sodding bastards has a problem with you being here, I’ll ask for them to be removed from the premises.” He swallowed hard and fixed his face back into its normal mask of nonchalance. “Or, if you prefer, we can go. I’ll… take you home, if you want. It’s whatever.”

Strangely, Crowley’s cursing and threatening had a calming influence on Ezra. He stood, too, and wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. “It’s just that I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to embarrass you, Crowley. Not in front of these people.”

“I can do everything. I can order the best food and the right wine, and all you have to do is enjoy it.” Something about that had worked, apparently, because Ezra wiped his forehead and offered Crowley a (very small, extremely shaky) smile.

“Alright.” Ezra tugged on the edge of his jumper and took a deep breath as Crowley opened the door to the dining room.

When they had sat down, Crowley summoned the waiter and ordered beef tartare, roasted lamb, and chocolate mousse for both of them. He flagged down a busboy with a wave and asked for a bottle of the 1998 Chateau Margaux. Ezra had watched all of this with interest, and finally mustered up the courage to ask about the wine.

“98 is a good year for that particular red,” Crowley explained, taking a large gulp of water and reaching a hand into the bread basket. “And red pairs better with beef and lamb than white does, and it should go nicely with the mousse as well.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of the wine. Hoping it would calm his nerves, Ezra reached for his glass, but Crowley stopped him.

“You have to let it breathe for a moment, angel.” Ezra nodded, blushing again. “Oi, none of that. Come to think of it, you should try breathing as well; might do you a world of good to get some oxygen into your lungs.” Crowley’s teasing smile was something of a comfort to Ezra because it meant that not everything had changed. Even in a new and terrifying place, Crowley still had the skill and talent for being (rather charmingly) irritating.

Their first sip of wine coincided with the delivery of the beef tartare, which Ezra stared at in confusion. “Crowley,” he said quietly, “why haven’t they cooked the meat?”

“It’s tartare, angel. It’s raw.” At that, Ezra turned slightly green and took an overenthusiastic sip of wine, which he immediately choked on.

“I think I’ll pass, but thank you.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Not feeling adventurous?”

Huffing, Ezra fidgeted with his sleeve. “This has already been quite enough of an adventure for me, Crowley. There’s really no need to bring anything else new into it.”

Much to Ezra’s disappointment, Crowley wasn’t having any of that. He’d brought Ezra here and would be damned if he wasn’t going to give him the full experience.

“One bite.”

“No, thank you.”

“Come on, just one! If you hate it, I’ll shut my goddamn mouth and you can have all the dessert.”

It was unclear to Ezra whether it was the thought of Crowley shutting his mouth or the offer of more dessert that did the trick, but he picked up his fork - the wrong one, but he didn't know that and Crowley would have stuck his finger in an electric socket before pointing it out - and took a tentative bite. To Crowley’s immense relief, Ezra’s blue eyes sparkled a little and he made a pleased noise in the back of his throat.

“That’s rather lovely, actually.” Ezra was watching Crowley carefully, waiting for some kind of snide remark, but Crowley just grinned at him and took a sip of wine.

By the time their dessert came to the table, a little over half of the bottle was gone, and Ezra was feeling pleasantly warm inside. He’d been trying not to act too much like the lovestruck fool he’d very recently realized himself to be, but the alcohol in his system had other ideas, so he was staring at Crowley affectionately over the rim of his wine glass.

“Angel, are you _drunk_?” A little laugh was not-so-smoothly hidden in Crowley’s rather abrupt cough, but Ezra was too busy being indignant at the very suggestion to notice.

“No! I’m… what’s the word? Not drunk but almost?” He went to take another sip of wine and frowned when he realized his glass was empty.

“Tipsy?” offered Crowley helpfully.

Ezra snapped his fingers. “Yes! Yes, that’s it.”

“Blimey,” Crowley smiled, uncorking the bottle and offering it to Ezra, who shook his head (somewhere in Ezra’s tipsy brain, a little alarm bell was ringing to warn him that getting sloshed would _definitely_ not be proper decorum at the Ritz). “You’re a lightweight, aren’t you?”

“I resent that comment.”

Crowley waved at their waiter and handed him a folded fifty-pound note as a tip. The waiter practically threw himself at Crowley’s feet in thanks (“Oh, this is wonderful! Thank you, Mr. Crowley, sir. Do come back again.”). Ezra was staring at Crowley, having trouble conceptualizing being rich enough to just have fifty pounds in one’s pocket, but Crowley pretended not to notice. He simply stood, straightened his jacket, and grabbed the half-finished bottle of wine from the table. “Ready to go?”

Nodding, Ezra followed him out of the dining room. When the attendant handed Ezra his coat, Crowley tipped her as well - five pounds - and sauntered out the front door. Ezra walked slowly behind, looking up at the night sky with a dreamy look on his face, cheeks flushed slightly and a small smile on his lips.

“It’s a shame we can’t see the stars from London,” Ezra sighed as he tucked himself into the Bentley. “I know a lot about astronomy from books, you see, but I’ve never really seen the constellations that I’ve studied.”

“Why?” asked Crowley, absent-mindedly flicking on his turn indicator as he changed lanes (something he would not have done had he been paying attention to driving).

Ezra shrugged. “Never had a telescope, let alone a way to get a telescope out to the country. You can’t exactly bring something like that on a bus.” Crowley just hummed and fell silent, unsure of how to reply. It wasn’t an uncomfortable type of quiet, though; it was the kind that settles over a room after a long night of drinking and dancing, the kind that nestles its way into the hearts of happy people.

“Where to now?” Crowley had forgotten to ask this question when they’d gotten into the car, and it only occurred to him when he realized he’d subconsciously driving to his own house.

“Home, I should think,” murmured Ezra, his blond head dropping to rest against the window. Something about the cool leather and Crowley’s cologne (or maybe it was just the wine) was making Ezra’s head feel heavy, and it spun a little when Crowley made a particularly aggressive u-turn in the middle of the road and began driving to Ezra’s flat.

Ezra did not know this, but Crowley had limited himself to one single glass of wine over the course of their two-hour meal, which meant that he was quite definitely sober. This was quite the accomplishment, actually, because Crowley had a tendency to start drinking and not stop until he couldn’t walk whenever the opportunity to do so presented itself. That night at dinner, however, had been different. The difference was Ezra. Crowley had told himself that he wouldn’t - that he _couldn’t_ \- drive drunk with Ezra in the car, and that thought had kept him sober.

By the time the Bentley slid up the kerb outside of Ezra’s flat, Ezra had fallen asleep. He was shaken gently awake by Crowley, who told him to get some rest. He nodded and climbed out of the car, at the last moment remembering something very important. He walked to the driver’s side and rapped on the window, motioning for Crowley to roll it down.

“Thank you,” he said, placing his hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “Really, thank you. For the walk, and the dinner, and the wine. And, erm, thanks for asking me to go with you and for calming me down. I… I had a very nice time.” He smiled his prettiest smile and was only a little (okay, a lot) thrilled when Crowley smiled back. Ezra ran a hand through his curls and turned to unlock the door to his flat.

“Angel,” said Crowley to Ezra’s back.

“Hmm?”

There was a pause, like Crowley had reconsidered saying anything. “Just so you know, I don’t feel embarrassed about going places with you.”

“What?” Ezra had forgotten about what he’d said to Crowley in the hallway at the Ritz, the pleasantness of the evening having overtaken the memories of his anxiety.

“You said, earlier. You said you didn’t want to embarrass me in front of those people.”

“Oh.”

Crowley cleared his throat. “Yes. Anyway. I’m not embarrassed - not anymore, anyway - and I don’t care what those people think of me.”

“Why?” This didn't make sense to Ezra. Crowley had always acted like he cared very much what the other people from his socio-economic class thought of him; after all, why would someone wear such expensive clothes and drive such a unique car if they weren't trying to fit in?

Ezra's breath caught in his throat when Crowley finally (after a few too many seconds of silence) gave him an answer.

“They don’t matter.”

With that, Crowley pulled the Bentley out into the street and Ezra crept into his flat, trying not to wake Gabe and his parents. He changed into his favorite pair of tartan-patterned pyjamas and lay back on his bed. It took him a while to fall asleep, but when he did, he dreamed of chocolate mousse and leather jackets.

*********

Back in his own house, Crowley stripped down to his boxers and slid beneath his dark silk sheets. As always, it was silent in the house, but for once Crowley found he didn't mind it. He was thinking about what he'd said to Ezra. He'd only said half of what he'd wanted to, only said the easy part. If he had been braver, he would have said all of it.

_They don’t matter, but you do._


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is a romantic who's totally arse-over-teakettle for one Ezra Seraff (who is about as good at picking up cues as a rabbit is at driving a car), but he's got a very dark secret that finally comes to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is super long, but I didn't have the heart to break it into two. I promised you last time that this chapter would get into the darker stuff, and it does (at the beginning a bit but especially at the end). 
> 
> I should probably say I'm sorry, but this was necessary. Still, I feel a little bad. 
> 
> Enjoy the fluffy bits and please, let me know what you think!! Thanks again for stopping by to read my rambling story about these two (2) ineffable idiots.
> 
> Warnings here for quite a lot of language, mentions of future drunkenness and past family trauma (still no physical abuse, I promise).

It was morning, and a ray of sunlight was beaming Ezra directly in the eyes. He grunted and rolled over, burying his face in his pillows and trying to ignore the light creeping into his room. He smiled at the memory of the previous night; Crowley had come very close to actually saying that he enjoyed spending time with Ezra, and Ezra couldn’t bring himself to stop feeling happy about it.

He was shaken out of his pleasant memories by his door nearly flying off its hinges with the force of his father’s knock. “Ezra, get up, get dressed, and come to the kitchen.” Something in Mr. Seraff’s voice seemed to draw all of the warmth out of Ezra’s bedroom, and he shivered.

“Alright, father. Just give me a moment to wake up; I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

There was a skeptical “hmph” from the other side of the door, but his father’s footsteps retreated down the hall. In a flash, Ezra realized what his father wanted: when he’d come home the night before, both of his parents were already in bed. He’d never been home that late before, and his father was probably very curious as to why he had done so last night.

When he’d put on a pair of proper trousers and an argyle jumper, Ezra walked to the kitchen. His father was seated at the table, sharply turning the pages of the _Times_ and taking large gulps of coffee. His mother was eating her toast in silence, and Gabe had already left for work.

“Hi, Mum,” Ezra said, pulling a jar of preserves out of the refrigerator. “Good morning, father.” He was spreading jam on his toast when the sound of ceramic breaking against wood made him jump.

His father was standing directly behind him, body-blocking Ezra from moving. Very slowly, Ezra turned around and looked into his father’s eyes. “We’d like to know where you were last night, lad,” Mr. Seraff said, feigning civility even as his blue eyes hardened to grey.

“Out with a friend,” Ezra replied, clutching his toast like a life preserver and dropping his eyes to his (mis-matched, of course) socks.

“Was this friend Anthony Crowley?” Ezra’s mother looked a little nervous, but her face didn’t hold the same anger as her husband’s, so Ezra chose to look at her when he answered.

“Yes.”

Faster than he could blink, Ezra was being lifted by the front of his shirt and brought to eye level with his father. “Lawrence,” Mrs. Seraff said gently but firmly, laying a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Put your son down.” Ezra’s father huffed, but much to Ezra’s great relief, obliged. Ezra shot his mother a grateful look and took a tentative bite of toast.

“Ezra, dear, what were you getting up to with that boy last night?” His mum looked genuinely concerned, and his father’s grip tightened on the rag he was using to clean up the coffee he’d spilled when he’d broken his mug.

Ezra swallowed hard and decided to tell the truth. “I didn’t plan to meet him. He just happened to be at St. James’ Park at the same time I was, and he offered to take me to dinner, so I went.”

“I don’t believe for a second that you met that vagrant at the park on accident,” his father growled, tossing shards of ceramic into the bin with a little more force than was strictly necessary. Ezra’s face grew hot and his toast-free hand balled into a fist, but he didn’t say anything.

His mum gave him a little half-smile and said “I believe you,” which prompted Mr. Seraff to grumble something about his son and his wife taking the path to hell before storming out of the room. Ezra’s mother didn’t offer anything else in the way of comfort, just stared at Ezra with mild concern and waited for Ezra’s next move.

Given that Ezra had never been in a tough situation without a good cup of tea to help him through it, his next move was putting the kettle on. While the water boiled, he settled himself gingerly at the table and finished his toast, carefully avoiding his mum’s eyes.

“I don’t feel guilty, you know,” Ezra said a few minutes later as he poured himself a steaming cup of tea and fixed it the way he liked. “Crowley isn’t as bad as everyone says, Mum, he’s really not. He took me to dinner at the _Ritz_ yesterday, did I say that?”

His mother’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Really, darling? How did he manage that?”

“His great-great-grandfather was the architect, so he can eat there for free whenever he likes,” Ezra said, going a little pink in the face at the memory and trying to hide it by taking a large swallow of still-hot tea.

“Bloody rich bastard,” said a voice from the doorway. His father was back, and while his eyes were still as hard as stone, the anger had dissipated from his posture. Mrs. Seraff patted the chair beside her, and Ezra’s father collapsed into it and leaned back, watching Ezra with keen interest.

“He is rich, but he’s not all bad,” Ezra retorted. “Not everyone who has money is evil, father.”

“Not everyone, no. But that bloke is trouble.”

Ezra’s mum reached out and took her husband’s hand. “‘That bloke’ is your son’s _friend_ , dear. Please try to be kind.”

Ezra couldn’t believe his ears. His mother was defending him - defending his friendship with a boy his father hated - and the world hadn’t stopped turning. “Thank you, Mum,” he breathed, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek as he stood and walked toward the doorway.

“I still don’t like him. He’s a - what did he call it? Bisexual? - and a troublemaker and a richy-rich type, and I don’t think he’s any good for you.” Apparently, Mr. Seraff did not know when he’d been beaten. A small flame of rebellion and disrespect licked at Ezra’s insides, and for once, he didn’t put it out.

“You know what, Dad?” Ezra’s blue eyes locked on his father’s. “I don’t really care what you think.” He stepped into the hallway and ignored his father’s shout of outrage. Snatching his coat off of the hook and his shoes from the floor, Ezra flung open the door and marched down the stairs, pausing only to put slide his feet into his loafers. He was oddly pleased to hear the door slam shut behind him. Ezra stepped into the street with a triumphant smile on his face, feeling like he’d finally done something he’d needed to do for a long time (which he had).

As he walked, he did the only thing he could think to do: he called Crowley.

“Angel,” Crowley’s sleep-hoarse voice said over the line, “I am going to kill you. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“It’s nine,” answered Ezra cheerfully. He could hear Crowley groan, but even that didn’t make his grin fade at all.

“What the bloody buggering hell could have possibly possessed you to ring me at this infernal hour of morning?” There was some static from Crowley’s end of the phone (he had swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped his phone in his attempt to stand up).

Ezra shrugged even though he knew Crowley couldn’t see it. “I was wondering if you’d like to do something today. Given that we’re both in London and by ourselves.”

“Ngk,” said Crowley.

A little of Ezra’s courage disappeared and he backtracked. “Only if you want to, of course. I… can go get tea by myself, it’s not a problem, I only thought I would offer.”

“Oi, angel. I didn’t say no.” Crowley yelped as he stubbed his toe on something, letting out a litany of curses. “Oh, sodding fucking fuck! Mother _fucker_ , motherfucking bloody shit…”

Ezra sighed. “Crowley, for the hundredth time, would you please watch your language?”

“No.”

Despite himself, Ezra laughed (and on the other end of the phone, Crowley blushed). “So do you want to meet at our shop, then?”

A pause, and then “Give me thirty minutes.” The line clicked, and Ezra smiled at himself in a nearby shop window.

It wasn’t until he arrived at the shop a few minutes later that he realized what he’d said. Ezra had called the coffee shop where he and Crowley met for tutoring “our shop,” which would have been embarrassing if Crowley had corrected him. The thing was, though, Crowley _hadn’t_.

Ezra ordered himself a blueberry muffin and sat down at the table by the window to wait for Crowley, the stupid grin on his face not faltering even once. When he saw the Bentley screech to a stop outside, he flagged down the waitress - who wasn’t the one Crowley had been flirting with for weeks, thank heaven - and ordered a tea for himself and a large black coffee for Crowley. Ezra paid and tipped, his already slim wallet becoming even lighter, but he found he didn’t really care.

“Angel,” Crowley yawned, slipping his slender (and nicely dressed and tastefully perfumed) body into the seat across from Ezra. “If I don’t order myself a coffee within the next minute, someone in here is going to lose their head.” When Ezra didn’t reply, Crowley raised an eyebrow and tried to look threatening, which made Ezra giggle. Before Crowley could say anything about that, a cup of steaming black coffee landed underneath his nose.

“You’re welcome,” Ezra said. Crowley stuck his tongue out and took a drink, but Ezra knew that he was grateful anyway. For nearly half an hour, Ezra and Crowley simply sat at their table in their shop and drank their favorite drinks, chatting idly about nothing in particular. The caffeine from Crowley’s coffee finally kicked in and he straightened a little in his seat, steepling his fingers together and leaning forward across the table.

“I had an idea on my way over here, angel.”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What is it?”

“That would be telling.” Crowley rose and swaggered to the door. “Let’s go, angel, we haven’t got all day!”

He was tempted to point out that they did, in fact, have all day, but Ezra managed to keep his mouth shut and follow Crowley out to the Bentley. They drove for a while through the narrow London side streets; Ezra was trying to guess where they were going, but Crowley never did anything more than give him a sly smirk and turn up the radio with every guess.

Crowley parked the Bentley on a street Ezra had been down only once or twice before. Before Ezra could even think to reach for the door handle, Crowley had unbuckled and run around the car to open the door. Ezra blinked at him and stepped out onto the pavement. “Right. Where are we?”

“Really? I’d have thought you’d recognize it.” There was a lamppost a few paces away that was, apparently, the perfect place for some bad-boy-esque leaning; Crowley had taken advantage of that and was looking at Ezra’s head as if waiting for the lightbulb to go on above it.

It did a few moments later (metaphorically, of course). “Baker Street.” Ezra looked around excitedly until his eyes landed on a green storefront with gold letters.

“The Sherlock Holmes Museum,” Crowley said, an unusual lilt in his silky voice. “You mentioned a few weeks ago that you like Sir Conan Doyle a lot - I think the words you used to describe him were ‘a genius, Crowley, a complete and utter genius’...” Ezra should maybe have been offended at the high tenor Crowley used to mock his voice, but he was preoccupied with forcing himself not to run over and tackle the other boy to the ground in a hug. He rather thought that Crowley would take offense to that kind of affection, so he tried to convey the same enthusiastic joy with a grin.

“I can’t believe you remembered that.”

Crowley waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, I can be thoughtful. Don’t go spreading it around, that would _kill_ my reputation.” With that comment and a small smile, Crowley strode across the street towards the museum. Ezra chased after him, not caring at all that he looked almost exactly like an overexcited puppy.

A few hours later, they were sitting in at St. James’ Park. Ezra was feeding the ducks with a pastry he’d bought from a vendor - Crowley had been right, as soon as he’d sat down, the ducks had swarmed around him looking for a snack - and Crowley was running his thin fingers along the spine of the book he’d purchased earlier that day.

“We’ve got a project in English due in a few weeks, you know,” Ezra said absent-mindedly, tossing a piece of croissant to his favorite mallard. “You could do yours on _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_.”

“Angel, if you say so much as one more word about school while we are on holiday, I will never speak to you again.” It was an idle threat, of course, but Ezra made a mental note not to talk about school until it had started up again the following week.

“Just saying.” Ezra broke off another piece of pastry, this time handing it to Crowley instead of the ducks (which quacked as indignantly as they could manage).

“Well… I don’t know. Don’t.” Crowley chewed carefully, and Ezra definitely did not notice the way his jaw moved with any sort of extra interest.

Barring the museum, it wasn’t a particularly eventful day. They had not done much, really; St. James’ Park was becoming more of a routine than a special outing, and there were long periods of companionable silence just as often as there were periods when they spoke. But to Ezra, it had been one of the best days of his life. Crowley had chosen to spend the day with him and taken him somewhere he’d never have gone on his own. Ezra had gotten over-excited and spent a quarter of an hour explaining a very minute detail of Conan Doyle’s life, and Crowley had sat on the park bench and listened. He’d been peckish, and Crowley had bought them a packet of fish and chips to share just because he could. All in all, it had been a near-perfect day, and consequently Ezra had been immensely disappointed when he received a text from Gabe informing him that he was expected home for dinner.

“Crowley,” Ezra asked before getting out of the car outside of his flat, “would you like to do something tomorrow?”

Something close to regret flashed over Crowley’s handsome features. “I can’t. I have other plans.” Ezra knew his face must have visibly fallen because Crowley reached over and laid a beautiful hand on his shoulder. “I could do Thursday, though.”

The smile that broke out on Ezra’s face as he climbed out of the Bentley could have lit half the buildings in London for a week. “Yes, alright.”

“See you Thursday, then.”

“Our shop?” There they were again, those words. Ezra savored the feel of them on his tongue.

“Our shop. But let’s make it a reasonable hour, shall we?” Crowley was smiling his tiny, Ezra-only smile, and it made Ezra dizzy.

“Nine-thirty?”

“I won’t be there one second before ten, angel.” The Bentley veered away from the sidewalk, nearly hitting an elderly woman as it turned the corner at the end of Ezra’s street. In spite of himself, Ezra laughed at that and headed into his flat.

Crowley hadn’t actually been lying when he’d said he had plans for the following day. He simply had neglected to tell Ezra that those plans consisted of waking up early enough to be good and drunk by eleven in the morning and drunk enough to pass out by two in the afternoon. It was, after all, Crowley’s nineteenth birthday, and that was how he’d spent the past two.

The reason for the binge-drinking and passing out had less to do with the fact that Crowley really enjoyed alcohol and more to do with the fact that his birthday was also the anniversary of the day sixteen-year-old Crowley had woken up to find two things on his bedside table: the keys to a vintage Bentley and a letter from his mother saying that his parents had left to pursue “a different course of life” in another country.

The letter hadn’t gone into much detail, but the main points where that the Crowleys had gotten sick of life in England and were sick of Anthony and his antics as well. Crowley’s turning sixteen meant that he was legally emancipated from parental control, which his parents had interpreted as the perfect opportunity to leave their troubles behind. In the interest of keeping up appearances, Crowley’s father had left him a checking account with a very large sum of money - the kind with too many zeroes to count - and would add to it every year on his birthday to make sure he was “comfortable.” There were also instructions about how to handle telling other people; these instructions were “don’t tell other people.”

For three years, Crowley had made all kinds of excuses for his parents’ whereabouts - vacations, business trips, a preference to stay in the house… on and on and on. Never once had he considered telling anyone the truth because it would have tarnished his image and made people pity him, which no self-respecting Crowley family member would tolerate. Never once, that was, until he’d been sitting in his car next to a geeky blond bloke with horrible fashion sense who had wanted to make plans with him just because he _could_. But Crowley’s shame had outweighed his desire to tell Ezra the truth, and so he’d shut Ezra out and resigned himself to the same routine of drunken misery as the years before.

While it’s true that Crowley had never told anyone about his parents, it wasn’t true that no one else knew. The only other person who was informed about Crowley’s situation was Mr. Fell, the family attorney responsible for making sure Crowley stayed in school and out of prison until he finished the sixth form. After that, Crowley was on his own.

That deadline was coming closer and closer, and Crowley found that he was afraid to be alone. Mr. Fell had never been a particularly kind man, but he was someone who knew what had happened and who always showed up when Crowley needed help. He was... well, he was just _so_ _meone_ , and in a few months he would disappear from Crowley's life forever.

The clock struck midnight and Crowley turned nineteen in a dark house by himself, lying face down on his parents’ bed and weeping into the dusty pillows. Finally, he drifted off to a restless sleep, thinking equally of his mother’s smile, his father’s hugs, and the grin on Ezra’s face outside of the museum a few long hours before.

Miles away in a cramped flat, Ezra was sleeping with his large body curled around a pillow, blissfully unaware of the demons closing in on his best friend.


	10. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys discuss birthdays and Crowley is, as usual, a complete idiot. This time, though, he lets Ezra see it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit more intense stuff, sorry. I promise Crowley will be held accountable for his actions in the next chapter. And we are getting closer to the end; I'd guess a few more chapters and a short epilogue.
> 
> Again: thanks for all the kudos! I love hearing from y'all, so please leave comments if you'd like to!
> 
> Warnings here for language and drunkenness.

It had been a month since the day at the museum and the chill of November had settled on London. Ezra was reviewing one of Crowley’s practice exams as the rain poured down outside the shop window when something occurred to him.

“Hey, when’s your birthday?”

In an instant, Crowley went from staring at the wall to glaring at Ezra, his back stiff and fingertips digging into the wood of the table. “What’s it to you?” His voice was the type of calm that Ezra had learned to associate with barely-contained fury, and Ezra was well and truly puzzled by that.

“Just wondering,” he said, returning to grading Crowley’s work. Since the end of the autumn holiday (the last few days of which post-Crowley’s-birthday had been spent in much the same fashion as the two preceding it: walking around St. James’ Park and doing whatever they could think of to entertain themselves), Ezra had mostly fallen back into his role as Crowley’s tutor rather than his best friend. He was a little ashamed to admit it, but he really missed spending time with Crowley outside of the few hours they spent doing schoolwork in the coffee shop; consequently, he saw his upcoming birthday as the perfect opportunity to invite Crowley to do something.

Crowley, apparently, did not like the way that Ezra had chosen to begin that conversation. He was still glaring, an unfriendly sneer on his face and his hands gripping the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles had turned white. “I don’t celebrate my birthday, angel.”

Ezra pretended not to be too interested in that very strange comment. “Oh?”

“There’s no reason to make a big deal out of the day someone was born. They don’t remember it, and they didn’t do anything except come into existence.” Crowley had stopped trying to break off a chunk of table and settled back stiffly into his chair. “Birthdays are pointless.”

Suddenly, Ezra’s plan of inviting Crowley out to celebrate his birthday seemed foolish, so Ezra just hummed noncommittally and wrote a grade at the top of Crowley’s paper in blue ink. “I see. Sorry for asking, I just thought it would be nice to know so I could be sure to get you something.” He handed the practice exam over to Crowley and began shoving his books in his bag, which meant he completely missed the look of shock on Crowley’s face. “Good work on that, by the way; I think you’ll earn a wonderful grade on your exam.”

When he glanced up to say goodbye, he noticed that Crowley was watching him with a strange look on his pale face. Ezra thought that in that moment, Crowley looked very much more like a lost child than the slick young man he usually tried to be. This, of course, caused Ezra to worry that he’d said something horribly rude on accident, and he apologized.

“What are you sorry for?” Crowley asked, running a hand through his red hair and still looking quite a bit like someone had just kicked his puppy.

“I must’ve said something wrong, you look like I’ve offended you.” Almost immediately, Crowley rearranged his features into his normal smirk, and Ezra rather wished he hadn’t said anything.

Crowley stood up and slung his messenger bag over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you haven’t. I was just surprised that you’d thought to want to give me a gift for my birthday, that’s all.”

Now Ezra wasn’t worried, he was just confused. He followed Crowley out of the shop, stopping him with a hard tug on the back of his leather jacket. “Correct me if I’m wrong - I genuinely might be, you understand, I don’t have much experience with friendship - but I thought friends usually got each other presents on their respective birthdays.” The rain was falling hard, soaking Ezra’s hair and coating his glasses, but that didn’t matter as much as Crowley’s answer.

“They might do. I just haven’t told people my birthday in a few years because I decided I hadn’t done anything to deserve gifts for no reason.”

Even though he was standing in the freezing rain, Ezra’s chest grew uncomfortably warm. “I’d like to get you something, if you wouldn’t mind telling me your birthday.”

“If I tell you, will you let me get out of this fucking rain and go home?” Crowley snapped, brushing a lock of wet red hair away from his sunglasses.

“Yes.”

Crowley sighed. “October fourteenth. It’s already passed, so there’s no reason not to tell you. It’s not as though you’ll be here when it comes around again.” He turned and sauntered to the Bentley, giving Ezra a little wave over his shoulder before ducking into the car and driving away.

When Ezra got home, he changed into dry clothes and spent the next hour staring at his bookshelf. It was the only part of his room that had anything gift-like on it at all, and even though he knew that Crowley wasn’t much of a reader, he’d decided that something would be better than nothing. “Ah,” he said finally, pulling a well-loved book off of the top shelf and touching its spine gently with a manicured finger. “He might actually like this one.”

The next day, after Crowley had ordered their customary coffee and tea, Ezra pulled out the book (which he had wrapped in brown paper) and slid it across the table.

“What’s this?” Crowley asked, gently un-taping the package and quirking an eyebrow at the contents.

Ezra shrugged, pushing down a smile and opening his Latin textbook to help Crowley with his homework. “It’s _Harry Potter_.”

“Yes, I can see that,” drawled Crowley. “Why have you handed me a book?” The waiter came with their drinks at that precise moment, so Ezra waited until he’d gone away to reply.

“It’s your birthday present.”

Crowley dropped his coffee mug, sending a wave of dark liquid cascading over Ezra’s textbook. “It’s _what_?”

“I know it’s not very much,” Ezra said quickly as he grabbed a stack of napkins and attempted to dry off his Latin book, “but it’s all I had on hand that I thought you might like.”

Ezra hadn’t been expecting much in the way of thanks. This was, after all, a gift given to a boy who hadn’t uttered the words “thank you” once in the seven years Ezra had known him; in fact, he’d thought that there was the distinct possibility Crowley might hand the book back and never speak to him again.

What happened was neither an expression of thanks nor anger. Without saying a single word, Crowley jumped up from the table and sprinted out to the Bentley, starting the engine and careening off down the street like a bat out of hell before Ezra could even begin to try and stop him.

“Oi, mate,” said a dark-haired bloke at the table behind Ezra. “What did you say to ‘im?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Ezra murmured softly, staring at Crowley’s empty chair. “Hopefully the right thing.” With that, he packed up his things, lifted his bag onto his shoulder, and walked home in a confused daze.

After an uneventful evening of family dinner and homework, Ezra had gone to bed early. He was reading under the light of his bedside lamp, a Dickens novel propped open on his bare stomach, when there was a light tapping on his window.

It was Crowley, crouching on the fire escape outside of Ezra’s window. He was a mess; his hair was sticking up at odd angles like he’d spent a significant amount of time tugging on it (which he had), his normally crisply-pressed clothes were rumpled and hidden under what appeared to be an old house coat, and for the first time since Ezra had met him, there were no sunglasses on his face (although it was too dark outside for Ezra to see his eyes). He also smelled very strongly of booze, a fact that Ezra became aware of as soon as he opened the window.

“What in God’s name are you doing? Get in here!” Ezra hissed quietly, unsure whether to feel happy that Crowley had come or angry at the state he was in.

Crowley ducked his head obligingly and slipped into Ezra’s room with far more grace than should have been possible for someone with such a high blood-alcohol content, looking around anxiously. He closed his eyes before Ezra had gotten a good look and slumped against the wall before sliding down it and landing in a crumpled heap on Ezra’s floor.

“Crowley.” The lump on his carpet made a sort of snuffling noise but offered no further response, so Ezra tried again. “ _Crowley._ ”

“Wha’?” Crowley groaned.

“Give me your hands, you git,” Ezra bit out. He’d decided to be angry, apparently, and he was damn well going to curse if he wanted to. Two shaky hands made their way out of the overly long sleeves of Crowley’s dressing gown, and Ezra pulled Crowley to his feet. This didn’t work out quite as Ezra had wanted; Crowley had no center of gravity at all, which meant he pitched forward into Ezra’s chest and sent both of them crashing backwards onto the bed. To his horror, Ezra’s heart started to pound against his ribs at the feeling of Crowley lying on top of him.

The headboard collided with the wall with a loud thump, which prompted Mrs. Seraff to walk down the hall to check on Ezra. “Honey,” she called through the door. Ezra, who had been trying to shift Crowley’s dead weight off of himself, froze. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, Mum,” he said back, forcing as much calm into his voice as he could muster. “I just tripped, I’m fine. Please don’t come in, though! I’m…” _Pinned to my bed by my best friend that I’m also in love with, who is drunk off his arse for reasons I haven’t as of yet been able to find out? No, best not to say that_. “... not decent. I haven’t got any pants on.” Crowley, apparently, found that very funny and started to giggle, so Ezra pushed his face gently into the duvet for a moment to quiet him.

“Alright, dear. Goodnight.”

When he heard his parents’ bedroom door click shut, Ezra hauled Crowley into a seated position against a pile of pillows and leveled him with a glare. Crowley’s eyes were still shut and he had begun whispering to himself, so Ezra jabbed him in the chest to get his attention. “Stay here. Do not move, and _please_ don’t make any noise. If my father knew you were in my room, he’d disown me and I’d be homeless and it would be your fault.”

“Okay,” sighed Crowley, opening his eyes fully for the first time since he’d gotten into Ezra’s room.

The sight of Crowley’s eyes made Ezra’s disobedient heart skip a few beats. They were a golden color, almost yellow, and they were staring right into his own blue ones. And they were _beautiful_.

  
“Oh,” Ezra breathed. He suddenly had a very passionate hatred for Crowley’s sunglasses.

Crowley raised a hand and gestured to his eyes. “Don’t like ‘em,” he said softly. “Doctors said ‘s a genen- geneck- some rubbish ‘nomaly. Think that’s bollocks, me.” He closed his eyes again and let his red head fall back against the pillows.

Ezra silently opened his door and crept into the kitchen. He filled a large cup with water for Crowley and grabbed the small bottle of aspirin out of the medicine drawer; after a moment’s thought, he also took a packet of biscuits out of the pantry (and really, who could blame him? A crisis like the one he was having necessitates large amounts of junk food, and the biscuits were the only thing he had on hand) and snuck back to his room. Crowley was still sitting on the bed and was humming to himself quietly.

“Here,” Ezra said, thrusting the glass towards him. “Drink this.”

“Whazzit?”

“It’s _water_ , you daftie.” Crowley made a face at that, but Ezra forced the cup up to his friend’s (rather lovely) lips and forced him to take a few gulps. When he was satisfied, Ezra placed the cup on his nightstand and pulled an afghan off of the end of his bed, spreading it over Crowley’s body. When he tucked the blanket around Crowley’s bare toes, he startled. “Did you even have shoes on?”

“Nuh-uh,” came the reply from up above. Ezra shook his head and sighed, and then he pulled back the covers on his side of the bed and flicked off the lamp. He lay down flat on his back and was staring at his ceiling when a very glaring and very concerning question made itself known in his mind.

He turned over to face Crowley, who had started whispering something about wanting his mum. Ezra filed that under “Questions To Ask This Bloody Idiot Tomorrow” and asked, very gently, how Crowley had gotten to his flat at ten o’clock at night.

“You’re gonna be angry with me,” Crowley said sadly. “Drove m’ car.”

It took every ounce of Ezra’s self-restraint not to punch Crowley in his stupid handsome face and shout something containing a wide variety of foul words, but Ezra managed to choke out “You _what_?” in a very angry whisper.

Crowley spent a moment scrambling with the bedclothes until he’d snuggled down under the covers next to Ezra. “Told you.”

“ _Of course_ I’m angry. I’m fucking furious, but you’re not going to remember this in the morning and you need to remember what I’m going to tell you, so it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.” He huffed and flipped over in bed so his back was to Crowley. Without warning, a warm arm threw itself around Ezra’s waist, and he lost his breath completely.

“Yer not wearing a shirt, angel,” Crowley said. Ezra, who had forgotten that fact in the midst of everything, flushed all the way from his forehead to the middle of his chest.

He made to get out of bed, trying to pull Crowley’s arm away from his body. “Sorry, let me just-”

“ _No_. I like no shirt. ‘S nice.” And with that, Crowley promptly passed out, his arm still wrapped around Ezra’s torso.

For most of the night Crowley slept like a baby, but Ezra kept waking every few minutes to check and make sure his bedmate was still breathing (which, thankfully, he always was). Crowley woke up once from a nightmare, crying for his mum and clutching at Ezra’s bare torso. Ezra did something then that he prayed Crowley wouldn’t remember: he leaned over and kissed Crowley’s sweat-and-tear-soaked cheek. It worked, and Crowley stopped thrashing about and wrapped his entire body around Ezra’s, falling back to sleep with a sigh.

Ezra sighed into Crowley’s hair. “I hate you, you bastard.”

He was lying, of course.


	11. Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, after an embarrassing night and painful morning, Crowley lets Ezra in on the secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this happened. It might be long enough to be two chapters, but there wasn't a good splitting point, so here it is in full. Sorry in advance for the ending of this one; I'll try to have the next chapter up tomorrow morning! 
> 
> thanks for your patience and for all the positive feedback :) I love hearing from y'all, you guys are too sweet!
> 
> it's really late where I am (like, early hours of the morning late), so I'm going to go to sleep and let y'all have a crack at reading this chapter. 
> 
> Heads up for language, mentions of alcohol use and drunkenness, and general emotionally angsty stuff (sorry)

The alarm clock on Ezra’s bedside table was nothing short of obnoxious, so when it began to blare at seven o’clock in the morning, Ezra immediately felt bad for Crowley. He’d never had a hangover himself, of course, but he’d read enough books to know that loud noises were not a thing that hungover people appreciated much. Judging by Crowley’s loud groan and mumbled curses, the books had been right.

Ezra could see the exact moment that Crowley realized he wasn’t at home in his own bed. Crowley was fumbling around as if reaching to shut off his own alarm when he suddenly went completely rigid and his golden eyes flew open. Having shut off the alarm, Ezra made his way over to his dresser and tugged on a shirt before Crowley could comment on his state of undress.

“Where the hell…” Crowley was scanning the room, eyes flicking from one thing to another before landing on Ezra (who was attempting to stand casually against the wall but actually looked more like someone had hung him there with a hammer and nails). “Oh. Oh, no, no, _no_. Please tell me I didn’t do this.”

“I’m afraid you did,” whispered Ezra, walking slowly over to the bed. “Showed up here around ten last night. You were so sloshed you couldn’t stand up, I’ve no idea how you managed the fire escape.”

“ _Fire escape_?” Crowley stared at Ezra in disbelief. “No, no way. I’m dreaming, that’s got to be it. Goodbye, angel, see you tomorrow.” He buried himself back under the covers. Ezra reached out and yanked them away, poking Crowley in the shoulder.

“Get up, Crowley. I have to get ready for school, and you have to go home before my parents find out you’re here.” As an afterthought, he added “And please, _please_ keep your voice down.”

In a flash, Crowley rolled over and stood up; he had made this decision without thinking - which was understandable given that his head felt like someone had bashed it in repeatedly with a bowling ball - and immediately regretted it when the room spun around him. Ezra watched him go a slightly disturbing shade of grey and flop backward onto the bed.

“How did I get here?”

Ezra felt his insides twist themselves into angry knots. “You _drove_.”

“...oh.”

He still felt a little like wrapping his fingers around Crowley’s neck, but he knew that Crowley-with-a-hangover was not going to to handle any sort of criticism well, so he resolved to push off that particular discussion until later.

“Drink this.” Ezra placed the half-full glass of water from the night before into Crowley’s hand. “And take these.” He unscrewed the cap from the bottle of aspirin and handed two of those to Crowley as well. Crowley did as he was told (which struck Ezra as a sure sign that he wasn’t feeling right at all) and looked up at Ezra expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” Crowley began quietly, looking down and then becoming immediately distracted by his lack of shoes.

“We don’t have time for this _now_ , you idiot. Are you sober?” While he asked that question, Ezra tugged on a clean button-down and began doing it up. He’d made up his mind that there was no way he was going to let Crowley make him late for school, so he was multitasking.

Crowley squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Yes, I think I must be. Got a bloody bitch of a headache, though.”

“Language,” muttered Ezra, feeling instantly like a hypocrite after all of the dirty words that had come out of his own mouth the previous night. He’d finished with his shirt and gotten to work on pulling a jumper over his head. When he’d gotten it on properly, he gave Crowley another command. “Stand up, and walk in a straight line. You’ve got to touch the heel of one foot to the toe of the one behind it.”

The boy on his bed almost laughed but choked it back after a pointed glare from Ezra. “A sobriety test? Really?”

“Yes. I can’t have you die in a car accident on your way home, you’ve got to be alive for later when I _kill you myself for being such a stupid idiot_.” Ezra surprised himself with the amount of venom in those last few words, but he supposed it was justified in light of the situation.

Crowley rolled his eyes (and winced, because that had also not been a good idea) but obliged. He made it all the way to the door without wobbling any more than he would have done normally, and Ezra was satisfied.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” whispered Ezra, trying to sound as authoritative as possible. “You are going to text me your address right now, and then you are going to go home. You are going to take a shower - really, Crowley, you smell like you took a bath in vodka - and you are going to eat something and take a nap. I am going to school; I’ve got an exam today and I told Anathema I’d bring her a book, but I will ride my bike over to your house as soon as class lets out. Instead of tutoring, we will talk, and you will explain why exactly we are in this situation.” Over the course of that list of instructions, Ezra had walked closer to where Crowley was standing; when he finished they were chest-to-chest and he was looking Crowley dead in the eyes with as much defiance as he could muster. “And when I get there, you had better be sober. If you’re not, I’ll… I’ll never talk to you again.”

Crowley’s amber eyes went wide, betraying a little genuine fear for just long enough that Ezra could see what it looked like. He composed himself and muttered, “Fine.” Stepping back, Crowley fumbled in the pocket of his dressing gown for a moment before fishing out his phone and punching something into it. On the nightstand, Ezra’s phone vibrated with a text that contained Crowley’s home address.

Ezra checked the message and gave his friend a tight smile. “Good. Now, go - wait a moment, you need some shoes… take these, they might be a little small but they’ll get you home - and I’ll see you this afternoon.” He threw open the window and gestured to it, and Crowley dutifully climbed out and made his way down the ladder.

To Ezra’s surprise, he didn’t see the Bentley on the street. Standing on the pavement below, Crowley looked equally confused for a moment, but then he headed off in the direction of the next street over. Ezra was putting on his belt when he heard the smooth rumble of the Bentley’s motor and dismissed it as a drunken mistake. What had actually happened was a nearly miraculous moment of clarity in Crowley’s very alcohol-addled mind the night before: it had occurred to him that Ezra’s parents knew what his car looked like and would be very suspicious if they woke in the morning to find it parked outside their flat, so he’d parked (very poorly, it must be noted) a block away to prevent anything going pear-shaped in regards to Ezra’s mum and dad. Crowley had been so hammered that he had very large portions of the previous night missing from his memory, but luckily that was one of the bits he remembered.

After a quick breakfast of toast and tea, Ezra kissed his mother and father goodbye and headed to school. The day passed at a crawl. Sleep deprivation combined with worry made Ezra miss an unusually high number of questions (only three) on his psychology exam and gave him a splitting headache, and he thought that he’d never heard a more beautiful sound than the final bell that released him from class.

Crowley lived in Knightsbridge, an affluent area that Ezra had only ever driven through in his father’s car or seen from the window of the bus. Standing in front of an imposing white-stone home across the street from Ennismore Gardens, Ezra began to panic. His palms were sweating, and he had the same sinking I-don’t-belong-here feeling that he’d gotten a few short weeks ago at the Ritz. Hands shaking, Ezra locked his bike to the gate in front of Crowley’s house, which was really pretty unnecessary as it was the least valuable thing on the street, but it made him feel better. He wiped his hands on his trousers and pushed the doorbell.

The door swung open to reveal a much more normal-looking Crowley. His red hair was piled into seemingly-effortless waves on top of his head, his leather jacket hung over a cleanly-pressed dark shirt, and his too-tight black skinny jeans were cuffed just above the top of his snakeskin boots. Ezra noticed all of this, of course, but what really drew his attention were the sunglasses. They were back in their place on Crowley’s face as if they’d never left, the bottom rim on the right side just skimming the sharp cheekbone that was raised in a smirk. It was hard for Ezra to reconcile the man he saw in front of him with the boy who’d stumbled into his bedroom pissed out of his mind eighteen hours before, and he felt his hopes that Crowley might actually talk to him vanish into thin air.

“Angel,” Crowley said cooly, stepping aside to let Ezra into the foyer.

“Crowley,” Ezra responded just as emotionlessly as he took a small step across the threshold. “I’m glad to see you have your armor back on.”

Crowley closed the heavy iron door and didn’t reply to Ezra’s snide comment with anything more than a snort (mostly because he knew it was true and was irritated that Ezra could see through him now without even trying) before he swaggered down the hallway into the sitting room. Ezra followed after he set his bag down in the foyer and kicked off his loafers.

When he walked into the sitting room, Ezra gasped, but not for the reason he’d thought he would. He had expected the room to be as beautiful as the Ritz, with gilded wallpaper and plush furniture and priceless paintings on the walls. Instead, he was faced with a massive room that was painted a very dull shade of charcoal grey and completely bare with the exception of a single black leather couch, a large flat-screen television, and an absurdly large number of houseplants. The sitting room was connected directly to the kitchen, which was where Crowley was.

“Tea?” The smoothness of Crowley’s drawl was still intact, but it seemed to Ezra that he’d made a bit of an effort to act a little more like a human being and a little less like an emotionless robot. He also appreciated the question itself because at the time it was asked, he was secretly wishing that he had thought to bring a cup of tea to calm his nerves.

“Yes, please.” Ezra sat primly down on the sofa, noting that it was the opposite of comfortable and wondering who had done the interior decorating in this godforsaken house. He looked at the houseplants and tried to ignore the soft sounds of Crowley making tea.

After a few minutes, Crowley sat down next to Ezra on the couch and handed him a steaming cuppa (complete with a splash of cream and two sugars, of course). Ezra took a grateful sip and forced himself to breathe in deeply, his ideas of how to begin this conversation having fled his mind the moment he stepped through Crowley’s front door. What his mind ultimately decided to go with was this very eloquent conversation starter: “I like your plants.”

One of Crowley’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “I like them, too,” he said, taking a gulp of his own cup of tea and carefully avoiding the words “thank you,” as he always did.

Ezra shifted on the couch, crossing and uncrossing his legs in a vain attempt to get comfortable. For the first time in his life, he found himself missing his cramped and musty bedroom something fierce; at least there he had a place to sit that didn’t make his buttocks ache.

“There’s no use trying to get comfortable, angel. I bought this couch for its look, not its ergonomics.”

“Oh, you bought it, then?” There was one question answered. The fact that it raised many more was something Ezra chose to ignore for the moment.

“Yes.” Another sip of tea, another awkward pause. “Is this really what you want to talk about?”

“No, not at all.” Ezra was relieved that Crowley had brought the conversation around to the elephant in the room; he’d been trying to do so but had come up short on ways of going about it. “Really though, Crowley, is there anywhere else in this massive house we could sit to talk about things? I’ll go home with a spinal cord injury if I sit here for too long.”

Oddly enough, that very un-Ezra-like sarcastic comment was what caused the needless tension in the room to snap like an old rubber band. Crowley’s strange, high laugh echoed around the empty room, and Ezra felt a little sliver of hope return to his heart. “The only other room I use very often is my bedroom, angel, so I’d imagine you’ll be wanting to stay here.”

An exasperated sigh was the only appropriate response, and so it was the one Ezra gave. “Crowley, less than twenty-four hours ago you were climbing through my bedroom window - with bare feet, in a _housecoat_ \- and ended up sleeping in my bed, holding me like your favorite teddy and complimenting me on my lack of shirt. If I were going to be uncomfortable being in a bedroom with you, I would have said so last night.”

He couldn’t see the shock in Crowley’s eyes because of those infernal sunglasses, but Ezra still rather enjoyed the way Crowley’s jaw fell open and the blush spread across his cheeks. “I… _what_? Oh, bugger it, it can wait until we get upstairs.” Crowley strode out of the room without so much as a backwards glance, so Ezra trailed behind him (because what else could he have done, really?). They must have passed at least five closed doors before Crowley finally stopped and pushed one open.

Given the state of the sitting room, Ezra shouldn’t have expected much of Crowley’s bedroom, but he was the type of optimistic fellow who assumed that people liked to have a personalized space to live in. Crowley, apparently, did not subscribe to that style of living. His bedroom was painted a slightly lighter shade of grey than the sitting room, and the furniture was stoic and utilitarian. The only thing that seemed to hold any personal sentiment at all was a wine bottle sitting on an otherwise empty shelf.

Crowley had settled himself on the bed with the practiced grace of one who was used to stretching out in a subtly sexy way on a variety of horizontal surfaces. Ezra, on the other hand, plopped down and curled his feet up under him, turning to face Crowley.

“Okay, angel. What do you want to know?”

There were a lot of things Ezra wanted to know, so it took a moment for him to pick one. “Why did you run from the shop when I gave you your birthday present?”

“I haven’t gotten a physical birthday present since I turned sixteen, and I honestly thought I’d never get one again. Plus, you gave me a book that you’ve clearly read a lot; it meant something to you, and I couldn’t find a way to say… to say thank you.” Crowley swallowed hard, the feeling of those words in his mouth after so long making his mouth go dry.

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes.” Crowley fidgeted with his silk sheets. “This morning, you told me to explain, and I can’t do that by lying.”

“You like lying. You lie all the time.” Ezra was skeptical of Crowley’s honesty. It was always easy to believe Crowley, but then again it has always been easy to believe good liars.

“Not to you.” The next words caught in Crowley’s throat for a moment, but he finally choked them out. “I may have omitted certain things, yes, and I may have avoided certain questions, yes, and I may not have ever been really forthcoming with important stuff, yes. All that is true. But I haven’t, as far as I know, actually ever lied to you.”

The sincerity in Crowley’s voice surprised Ezra. “Why?”

“You matter.” Finally, weeks after their dinner at the Ritz, Crowley finished the sentence that he’d been to much of a coward to complete when he’d needed to.

“What?”

“To me, angel. You matter to me.”

Ezra started shaking, then. His broad shoulders collapsed in towards his chest and he turned his back to Crowley, who was well and truly baffled by that response. “Don’t tease me, Crowley,” Ezra said after a moment, his voice just as shaky as his body. “Not about that.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t matter, not to you. _No one_ matters to you, Crowley, that’s why you’re able to be so aloof and cool and put together all the time.”

It felt like Ezra had punched him in the chest, so Crowley resorted to sarcasm. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”

“Sure,” Ezra spat, spinning around again to stare at the lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses, blue eyes blazing. “Why do you not care about anyone but yourself?”

“It’s easier. When I care, I get hurt. You’ve just proven that, actually, so _fuck you_.” The hardness in Ezra’s eyes faded at that, and he realized what he’d done.

“You were serious. Just now, when you told me I matter to you, you were being serious and I didn’t believe you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It _does_ , and I’m sorry. I’m just… angry, I guess, and confused. I’m so sorry, Crowley.”

“Ngk,” Crowley grunted. He didn’t look at Ezra, just stared at the wine bottle on the wall and stroked his thumbs absent-mindedly against his jeans. After a moment, Ezra heard him take a sharp breath in, and then the real answer came. “I try not to care about anyone because when I care, they always leave, and I end up hurt. But you… you make me go stupid, angel. Seriously. It’s been driving me half-mad since I met you. All of my walls just, I dunno, turn to dust when you’re around.”

Unbidden, Ezra’s heart leapt into his throat and his face flushed bright red. “Why is that bad?”

“Because I can’t protect myself. And I need to.”

Ezra almost laughed at the idea that Crowley needed protection from the likes of him, but he managed to control himself. “But why?”

The silence stretched, longer and longer, until Crowley finally broke it. “The same reason that I haven’t gotten a birthday present since I was sixteen. The same reason that this house is so dull. The same reason that I didn’t make plans with you that day during autumn holiday, which, as I’m sure you figured out, was my birthday.”

“And what’s that?”

Crowley twisted his body back around toward Ezra, and to Ezra’s astonishment, a tear was cutting a wet line down his cheek. “I… I haven’t ever told anyone this, angel, you have to understand that.”

“Wait,” Ezra broke in, unwilling to go one more millisecond with the barrier of Crowley’s glasses in the way. “Can you do me a favor, first?”

The laugh that came out of Crowley’s mouth was higher than usual. “Something else?”

“Take off your sunglasses.”

At that command, Crowley flinched away from Ezra and crunched himself up against the pillows. “Why? My eyes are horrible.”

“No, they’re really not.”

“They _are_. You haven’t seen them in the light, not properly…” Crowley trailed off, bringing his hands up to both sides of his face and resting them against the arms of his glasses. “You won’t like them, angel. Really. Don’t make me do this.”

“I saw them last night, Crowley. And this morning.”

A head shake and another tear. “Not properly.”

“Properly enough. _Please_.” When Crowley didn’t move, Ezra leaned forward and placed one of his hands over his friend’s racing heart, trying to soothe him. “I know what you have to tell me is important, and I don’t think you should be hiding when you do it.”

Crowley shuddered. “All out in the open, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Very slowly, achingly slowly, Crowley pulled his sunglasses off of his face. His eyes remained closed for a moment, just long enough for Ezra to hear him say “Please don’t run.” And then gold eyes met blue ones again, and Ezra could see the fear, anxiety, and self-loathing making dark swirls behind the yellow.

“I think your eyes might be the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” Ezra whispered reverently. Crowley shivered again, and a little of the fear was replaced by doubt.

“Don’t tease me, angel,” whispered Crowley in a perfect remix of Ezra’s earlier words.

“I’m not.” A tiny smile twitched at the corner of Crowley’s mouth, and Ezra shot him a grin in return. He removed his hand from Crowley’s chest and tucked it into his pocket, leaning back against the headboard. “So. Tell me this great big secret, then.”

“You won’t tell anyone?”

Ezra laughed. “Who would I possibly tell? I haven't got any friends besides you, you numpty.”

A sigh and a small breathy laugh later, Crowley stood up and crossed the room to a tall chest of drawers. He opened it, pulled something out of the top drawer, and walked back over to the bed.

A folded piece of paper landed in Ezra's hands. “Read it.”


	12. Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conversation continues, and some very important things are said. Mostly dialogue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! This chapter is very very dialogue-heavy, but there really wasn't another way I could find to do this and have them say what needed to be said. The next one will be easier to read, I promise! 
> 
> I know I've promised you all some romance and have yet to deliver on it, but I swear that it's coming! Sorry for dragging it out, but the ineffable idiots are just that: idiots. This slow burn is slower than tar dripping, and I feel a little bad about that, so I figured I'd reassure you all. 
> 
> thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who's been following this story, and to any new readers: welcome! As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 
> 
> heads up here for language, discussion of drunkenness, and a few very sad things that Crowley believes about himself.

Ezra was pacing around Crowley’s room, his anger mounting with every sentence he read. He was, of course, reading the letter that Crowley had woken up to find on his bedside table approximately three years and a month earlier. No matter how hard he tried, Ezra couldn’t seem to get his mind around how Crowley’s parents could have just up and left their son because they didn’t want to care for him any longer.

By the time he reached the end of the letter, Ezra had worked himself into a proper rage, and his hands were shaking as he re-folded the pages and stuffed it back into the yellowed envelope. Crowley was watching him from the bed, the expression on his face a fair mixture of apprehension, fear, and relief.

“How could they do this to you?” Ezra’s voice was dangerously low and trembled with the fury that had lodged itself in his chest. “How could they just _leave_ you?”

“Believe it or not, I’ve never really had the chance to ask,” replied Crowley shortly. “Haven’t heard from them since-” he gestured at the letter that was slowly becoming a crumpled ball in Ezra’s fist “-that. I get money every year, but never a note or a message or a phone call.”

Ezra closed his eyes and tried to take a few calming breaths, which didn’t help much at all but made him feel like at least he was putting some effort into maintaining his composure. He wasn’t sure how Crowley would feel about him flying into a rage. “I don’t know what to say to you, Crowley. I don’t know how to help.”

There was a sniffling noise from the bed. “It’s enough that you know, angel.”

Unfortunately, Ezra was not quite willing to let this go just yet. He had no idea what to say, but he had to say something or his chest would explode. “I’m so _sorry_. Really, I’m sorry. I wish I had known years ago, maybe I could have done something-” He was interrupted by Crowley’s laugh, high and cold and frightening.

“You hated me when this happened, angel.”

Ezra shook his head violently and practically ran over to the bed. “No, I didn’t. I’ve never hated you, I swear it.” It was the truth, sort of; in the back of his mind, he knew that if Crowley had come to him with this information when it had first happened, he probably would have dismissed it as a prank and gone back to thinking uncharitable thoughts about Crowley. That thought stung a bit, but it was honest.

“Didn’t like me much, though,” Crowley muttered, picking at a thread on his jeans.

Ezra decided not to reply to that. He couldn’t bring himself to lie to Crowley, not after what he’d just read, but he also wasn’t interested in adding insult to injury by confirming what Crowley had just said. “That doesn’t matter. I just wish I could have done something.”

Another short laugh from the bed. “Oh, and what would you have done? Welcomed me into your family as a brother, tried to convince your father not to hate me?”

“I… I don’t know.” For possibly the first time ever, Ezra felt incredibly stupid and very, very small. “I’m just _sorry_ , Crowley. Really.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Crowley’s voice had softened ever so slightly, and Ezra suddenly knew what to do. He stretched a hand out and grabbed Crowley’s arm, pulling the taller boy to his feet and standing very close to him. He heard the breath hitch in Crowley’s throat, those yellow eyes watching him warily. Briefly, Ezra thought that Crowley looked like a frightened deer.

“I may not have done this to you, but your parents did. And they never apologized - damn them to hell and back for that, by the way - but someone should.”

A little chuckle rumbled through Crowley’s chest. “Oi, angel, watch your language.”

“Shut it,” Ezra said, and hugged him.

There was a space of about four seconds (Ezra knew, he was counting) in which Crowley just stood there like a statue and didn’t do so much as breathe. In the next instant, through, long arms were wrapping themselves around Ezra’s shoulders and then Crowley was hauling Ezra even closer to his chest, squeezing so tightly that all of the air left Ezra’s lungs in a whoosh. After a minute of this, Ezra was beginning to see spots, so he pushed himself away from Crowley’s chest and sucked in a much-needed gulp of air.

As fast as they’d appeared, Crowley’s hands vanished from where they’d been digging into the soft fabric of Ezra’s jumper and were back at his sides. “Sorry,” Crowley said, looking down at his boots. “Shouldn’t have… sorry.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “You’re _daft_ , honestly. I couldn’t breathe, that’s all. Just needed a second.” He stepped forward and pressed himself back against Crowley’s slight frame, breathing a sigh of relief when Crowley responded in kind.

Neither of them were entirely sure how long they stood there. Crowley’s heart was pounding quickly against his rib cage, and he had his eyes closed and was breathing in the scent of Ezra’s shampoo. Ezra had his face pressed into Crowley’s leather jacket, trying his hardest to squeeze all of the years of bad feelings and pain out of his friend’s body with a single hug.

“Thank you, angel,” Crowley whispered into Ezra’s curls, squeezing the other boy’s shoulders once before letting go. They settled back onto the bed, a bit less space between them than there had been before.

Ezra had a sinking feeling that the letter and the horror it contained were only the tip of the iceberg. “Can I ask you another question?” There was a non-committal grunt from Crowley’s side of the bed, so he pushed on. “How long has it been since anyone’s hugged you or, you know, touched you kindly?”

Crowley went a little pink in the face and became very interested in the wall. “Are you asking me about my sex life, angel?”

Ezra blanched. “Oh, _God_ no! I was- I did _not_ mean- _please_ don’t tell me- oh, dear.” This was apparently the reaction Crowley had been expecting because he burst out laughing (his normal laugh, not the cruel one or the wounded one) and made a sarcastic comment comparing the color of Ezra’s face to the uniforms of the Buckingham Palace guards. When he’d finally caught his breath, Crowley fixed Ezra with a mischievous smirk and got around to answering the question.

“Barring _that stuff_ ,” he began with a little wiggle of his eyebrows that made Ezra flush a hue that was closer to purple than red, “it has been a very long time.”

“Well, I think we ought to make it a more regular thing, then,” Ezra said, making an effort to keep his voice nonchalant and casual. His efforts failed, of course, when Crowley didn’t reply right away, so he started babbling. “Human beings are social beings, and we need the touch of other humans to develop properly, you know. So if you’d be open to it, maybe I could hug you a bit more often? Not all the time, of course - I know we’re blokes and blokes don’t do that, but we’re mates. Honestly, who else would you ask, Hastur and Ligur? They’re not exactly the most warm and fuzzy-”

“Oi, angel! Enough.” Ezra snapped his jaw shut so quickly he caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “You can hug me whenever you want, as long as it’s not at school. Can’t have my reputation as an unfeeling badass torn to shreds just because you think I’m touch-starved.”

“You _are_ , though.”

Crowley’s amber eyes rolled very dramatically. “Yes, yes, _I_ know that and _you_ know that, but I can’t have other people knowing. Besides, you told me you wouldn’t say anything about the… you know, the thing about my mum and dad.”

“Alright, fine. Not at school.” Ezra didn’t like it, and he very much wished Crowley would tell a real adult what had happened, but he decided to pick his battles a little more carefully and let the argument drop.

“Thank you. Okay, what’s your next question?”

Quickly, Ezra ran down the list of questions in his head and eliminated the ones that the letter had answered. “Right. Last night, you showed up at my window drunk off your arse because I’d given you a birthday present. Explain.”

A scowl settled itself onto Crowley’s face. “It’s the same answer. Hadn’t gotten a present in years, freaked out a bit and spiraled into memories of my parents leaving.”

“Yes, I know _that_. What I don’t know is why you decided it would be a good idea to get plastered and _drive drunk across the city_ \- which by the way, I am incredibly angry about and have half a mind to smack you for - just to come see me.”

It was a long moment before Crowley answered. “I think I’d got it into my head that you deserved a thank you, and I was two beers and three-quarters of a bottle of vodka deep because I was trying to forget about my mum and that stupid sodding letter, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

All of the anger that Ezra had pushed down about Crowley’s drunk driving bubbled up to the surface. “Crowley, you are so clever! How could someone so clever be so incredibly stupid?” He was shaking again, and he couldn’t manage to sit still, so he stood up and began pacing at the foot of the bed. “You could have _died_ , you bloody great git! Or you could have killed someone! You could have gone to prison, or to a morgue, and you took that risk because you decided you wanted to come and _thank me for a fucking book_?”

“Yes,” sighed Crowley.

A little red flag labeled “Watch your language, Ezra John” popped up in Ezra’s mind, but he ignored it. He walked over to Crowley’s side of the bed and thumped him on the chest with the palm of his hand. “You… you can’t ever do that again, Crowley. Not ever, do you hear me?”

“I know it was stupid,” Crowley said, catching Ezra’s eye and holding his gaze for a moment. “I know it was. I’m- I’m sorry, alright?”

“Not good enough.” Ezra was still furious. “Promise me you won’t ever drive drunk again. Promise me you’ll take the bus or call a cab - I’d ask you to promise me that you won’t ever get that blitzed again in your life, but that’s a discussion for another day - because you _can’t_ die like that, okay?”

“It’s not like anyone would miss me if I did.” The words, which had been floating around the edges of Crowley’s mind since Ezra had started on his rant, flew out of his mouth before he could stop them. Crowley cringed. He hadn’t meant to actually say that out loud.

“That’s not true.”

“Oh?” Defiantly, Crowley looked Ezra in the eyes. “Name one person who’d miss me, then.”

“ _Me_ , you complete and utter _stupid_ idiot.”

Defiance turned to disbelief. “You don’t mean that.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “We just had a conversation a little bit ago in which you told me that I matter to you, and I didn’t believe you for a moment and that hurt. Are you honestly going to do the same to me?”

“Right,” said Crowley slowly. “You would miss me if I died.” He sounded horribly as though he were trying to convince himself that it was true (which, as it happened, he was). 

“ _Of course_.” A pause. “You’re my _best friend_ , Crowley. You’re… you’re all I’ve got outside of my family, really, and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you now.” To Ezra’s dismay, he could feel tears running down his cheeks. _I’m a bloody pansy_ , he thought miserably, swallowing the lump in his throat and hoping against hope that he could manage to stop crying before Crowley noticed.

“Oh.”

“Promise me, Crowley. Please, just promise.” He took off his glasses and wiped his cheeks, trying not to seem as upset as he felt.

For what felt like hours, Crowley sat silently on the bed, eyes closed and body rigid. Ezra stood beside him and waited. Finally, Crowley’s smooth voice filled the room. “I promise that I won’t drive drunk again. And I’ll try to keep the drinking-until-I-pass-out to a minimum, but that’s the best I can do.”

Like a tidal wave, three little words rose up in Ezra’s chest. He wanted to say them, wanted Crowley to know, but he pushed them back down into the pit of his stomach. He thought that Crowley would probably run for the hills if he said them (Crowley wouldn’t have, of course, but Ezra didn’t know that), so he settled for the only other thing he could think to say. “Thank you, Crowley.”

Silence fell over the room once more, and Ezra curled himself back up against the headboard. He wasn’t sure what else to ask, so he glanced around the room and listened to the sound of Crowley’s breathing. Luckily, he didn’t have to choose another question because Crowley asked one first.

“Do you know why I call everyone by their surnames, angel?” This question was not what Ezra had been expecting, and it was one he had been wondering about since he’d met Crowley.

“I don’t, no.”

“It keeps people away. Keeps them at a distance.” Crowley drew in a shaky breath and continued. “That’s why I go by my surname, as well. Even when my parents were still around, I’d had friends leave me before, so I decided to try and cut down on my personal connections to other people. After my parents were gone, I just thought it would be better if no one got close.”

“You don’t call me by my surname, Crowley.”

“No, I don’t.”

Ezra was confused. “Why?”

The light from the window had landed on Crowley’s face, illuminating it so Ezra could see every muscle with perfect clarity. Crowley’s tiny smile was stretched across his lips. “From the moment I got to school and you tried talking to me every day - and weren’t discouraged when I didn’t talk back - it seemed pretty clear that I wasn’t going to be able to shut you out completely. Your surname didn’t seem right for you, somehow, until I realized what it meant. You’ve just been ‘angel’ in my mind ever since.”

Ezra scooted a little closer to Crowley. “But you did keep me out, Crowley. You did.”

“Not in the end, though.” Long, pale fingers gestured around the room. “Look where we are. Look what we’re doing. I’d say you’re about as far from kept out as you could possibly get.”

He picked at his jumper again and avoided Crowley’s eyes. “Are you, I don’t know, okay with that?”

“No,” Crowley said. “Not really.”

Flushing deep scarlet, Ezra muttered an apology and scrambled to his feet. He was halfway out the door when Crowley’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“You terrify me.”

“What?” Ezra didn’t turn around; he just stood frozen in the doorway and hardly dared to breathe.

“You terrify me,” Crowley repeated. “Despite my best efforts, you got close. I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Oh,” whispered Ezra, still facing the hallway.

“Aren’t you scared?” The air behind Ezra shifted, and Crowley leaned his slim body up against the wall next to Ezra’s shoulder.

Ezra just nodded, not trusting himself to form words that were anything but “I love you.” Thankfully, Crowley’s laugh broke the silence once more, and he stepped past Ezra into the hall.

“I think that’s quite enough emotions for today. Don’t you agree, angel?”

“Yes,” Ezra said. “Quite.” He followed Crowley down the stairs, and they stood in the kitchen and argued about where to go for dinner for a bit. When Crowley made a face, Ezra noticed something that made his stomach flip. They’d finished talking about important stuff, but Crowley had left his sunglasses on the table upstairs.

This changed, of course, when they climbed into the Bentley and drove to a chip shop a few minutes later (Ezra laughed when Crowley popped open a compartment in the dashboard and pulled out a pair of sunglasses identical to the ones he’d left at home), but Ezra didn’t mind. He was munching happily on a piece of vinegar-soaked fish when Crowley leaned back in his chair and voiced exactly what was on Ezra’s mind.

“Friendship is weird.”

Ezra grinned. “Quite.”

“I don’t mind it too much, though,” Crowley drawled as he took a bite of chip. Ezra simply hummed in agreement and finished his fish.

He got back to the flat rather later than he’d told his mum he would and consequently received a telling-off from his father (Crowley had been concerned that this would happen, but Ezra told him not to worry about it and set off for home on his bike). Ezra had taken the reprimanding in stride and was halfway through a science essay on the impossibility of time travel when his phone lit up beside him on his desk. It was a series of messages from Crowley, and when Ezra read them, he dropped his phone and did a little jig in his bedroom.

 _I’ve been thinking about what I said earlier about having people call me by my surname, angel_. A break, and then a new message. _I think you can call me Anthony, if you want_. A third. _Not at school, mind you, but… other places._

Hastily, Ezra sent a reply. _You’re sure?_

_No, but I want to be._

Ezra laid down on his bed and sent a prayer up to God thanking Him for creating the man known as Anthony Crowley, and then he changed Crowley’s contact in his phone.

Crowley was curled up in bed and drifting off to sleep, his face crushed into the pillow that Ezra had been leaning on earlier, when his phone vibrated on his nightstand.

_Goodnight, Anthony._

_Yeah_ , Crowley typed back, his heart skipping a beat at the sight of Ezra calling him by his first name. _I’m definitely sure that this is okay. Night, angel._ He rolled onto his back and grinned across the room at the empty wine bottle sitting on his shelf. The smile was still on his face as he fell asleep.

Earlier on, when Ezra had been in Crowley’s room, he’d seen the bottle and identified it as the only personal item in the otherwise Spartan bedroom. He hadn’t had the chance to give it much further thought, but if he had, would have noticed something interesting: the label.

The bottle on Crowley’s shelf was the very same 1998 Chateau Margaux that had been shared over beef tartare, roasted lamb, and chocolate mousse on the evening they dined at the Ritz.


	13. Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra's birthday arrives. That's pretty much it, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I'm not really sure how I feel about most of this chapter. It's kind of just transitional and unfortunately fairly dialogue-heavy again, with one pretty major event. I guess I needed something to lead into the next chapter (which is already in the works and should be up tonight), and this is what I could come up with. 
> 
> This story has become my obsession over the past few days, and it's really as much about y'all as it is about me, so please let me know what you think! Feel free to give me honest feedback - if you don't like it, let me know what I should change!
> 
> Again: thank you all so much for reading! Love to all of you. 
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for language and very obvious homophobia (including a homophobic slur - please don't take this as a reflection of me, I would never use this word in a million years)

On Monday afternoon, Ezra and Crowley were sitting in the shop working on chemistry work, and Ezra couldn’t sit still.

“Angel, would you stop bloody fidgeting?”

“Sorry.” He kept fidgeting. After five minutes of this, Crowley huffed and set down his pen with an exasperated sigh.

“I can tell when you’ve got something to ask, so just _ask_. I want to finish this and go home.” To an outside observer, Crowley sounded truly annoyed, but Ezra could hear a little bit of a smile behind his words.

Ezra tapped his red pen against the side of his glasses. “I’m not entirely sure what you’re going to say if I ask you this.”

Crowley was wearing his sunglasses, so his eye roll was hidden from view, but Ezra could feel it. “Just fucking ask, angel. Honestly.”

“It’s about my birthday.” One of Crowley’s eyebrows jumped up above the top rim of his sunglasses, but he didn’t say anything. Ezra braced himself and launched into the spiel he’d prepared in his bedroom mirror that morning while he was getting ready for school. “Okay, so every time someone in my family has a birthday, we all go out to dinner at this little chain Italian restaurant down the street. It’s not great food, but it’s a special treat since we can’t afford to eat out much. Anyway, my mum called yesterday and made the reservation - my birthday is on Friday, have I said that yet? - and she made it for five.”

Crowley looked bored. “Why?”

“She thought that you might like to come.” There it was, hanging in the air over the table. Ezra wasn’t breathing; he was waiting for Crowley to yell or run out the door or tell him to fuck off. None of those things happened. Instead, Crowley just grunted and went back to his chemistry worksheet.

“Oi, Anthony.” A little smile crossed Crowley’s lips, but he didn’t look up. “Hey, I’m talking to you! I need to know if you’re coming.”

“You said your mum wants me to come, angel.” He kept scratching away at the paper in front of him, not even glancing up once. “The question is: do you?”

Ezra realized then that he had phrased the invitation in a way that sounded very much as though he did not want Crowley to come to dinner, and he blushed furiously. “Yes, I do. But my father’s going to be there, and I can’t promise you that he won’t be rude. And my brother, Gabe, can be a bit of a git when he wants to be; you haven’t met him yet, but he knows you from what my father has said - I’ve defended you, of course, but Gabe worships the ground my father walks on.”

“This is a very bad sales pitch,” chuckled Crowley, finally looking at Ezra as he passed over his completed worksheet for Ezra to check. “Please never try to sell _anything_ to anyone, ever.”

“I can’t promise it will be fun, really. But,” Ezra reached across the table and touched Crowley on the arm very lightly, “it would make me very happy if you wanted to celebrate with me, even given all of the bad family dynamics.”

To Ezra’s complete surprise, Crowley appeared to be considering it. While Crowley was thinking, Ezra looked over the chemistry assignment that Crowley had finished and marked a grade at the top. He handed it back with a little unnecessary flourish; Crowley had gotten a perfect score.

“Keep this up and you won’t need me anymore,” Ezra teased.

“Trying to get rid of me?” Crowley’s voice sounded light, but it shook just enough that it betrayed genuine fear.

“ _Never_. I’m only saying that you might not need me to tutor you anymore; you seem to be getting along fine on your own.”

“If you didn’t have to tutor me, could we still come here after school and work on homework together?” There was something mildly hopeful-sounding about that question, and it made Ezra break into his huge megawatt grin.

“Of course we can, we’re mates.” Crowley’s smile was, as usual, smaller than Ezra’s, but it meant exactly the same thing.

They left the shop, walking close enough that their elbows brushed with every step. When they reached the Bentley, Ezra reached up and wrapped his arms around Crowley’s neck. Crowley, who had not been expecting this, floundered for a moment before locking his thin arms around Ezra’s waist and crushing Ezra’s body to his. Unbeknownst to each other, both boys were trying very hard to remember the meaning of the word platonic.

A shout from across the street caused them to spring apart like they’d been burned. “Get a room, y’ fuckin’ faggots!”

Crowley’s hands balled into fists, but he didn’t move. He was, after all, fairly used to the slur and did his best not to be bothered by it (obviously he always _was_ bothered, but he tried not to let it show). He’d heard it first when he was fifteen, and when he’d asked his father about it, he’d been told that it was a bad word for men who like other men. This had prompted a discussion about what was wrong with men liking other men, which had led to Crowley telling his father that _he_ liked boys, which had led to Crowley’s father telling him to be very careful about sharing that information with other people. All-in-all, the experience of coming out hadn’t been too terrible; it certainly could have been better, but the world hadn’t imploded and life had gone on, so Crowley had counted it as a win.

Ezra was, unsurprisingly, even more used to the word than Crowley. It would have been impossible for Ezra to go nearly nineteen years dressing, talking, and acting the way he did without being called that at least once by some bully or another. This had happened with almost alarming regularity when Ezra was in middle school; interestingly enough, it had been perpetrated mostly by Crowley’s friends Hastur and Ligur before Crowley had moved to London. After that, the frequency with which that word was directed at Ezra decreased somewhat, but he still heard it from time to time. Somewhere around seventh grade, Ezra had decided to reply to (what he’d thought at the time were misplaced) homophobic slurs by giving the bully a smile and telling him to have a good day. For years, this tactic worked fairly well because bullies generally stopped bullying when their victims stopped allowing themselves to be victims.

But standing on the sidewalk in front of their coffee shop, Ezra’s usual response seemed childish and weak, and he felt utterly helpless. Crowley noticed.

“Has that not happened to you before?”

Ezra shook his head. “Not… not out in public, no.”

The distance between them disappeared in an instant as Crowley stepped forward and grabbed Ezra’s hand. Dimly, Ezra registered the fact that Crowley had actually touched _him_ instead of the other way around. And then Crowley’s breath was tickling his ear and all coherent thought went out the window.

“I’m so sorry, Ezra.” It was a whisper so quiet that there was no chance of anyone passing by overhearing it. Somehow, like magic, Crowley had managed to manufacture a private moment in the middle of a busy London street. To Ezra, that was nothing short of a miracle. Crowley’s face lingered against Ezra’s for another moment before he pulled away and popped open the door of his car.

By the time Ezra’s brain managed to regain its basic functionality Crowley had started the Bentley and was leaning out the window, waving to get Ezra’s attention. “Hey, angel. What do I wear to this birthday dinner of yours?”

If it had been possible for a human being to turn spontaneously into a puddle of goo, Ezra would have been dripping through the metal grate he’d been standing on. “Whatever you want,” he said dazedly. Crowley cast him a small smile and pulled his sunglasses down just enough to let Ezra see his eyes, then winked and roared off down the street.

Ezra spent the rest of the evening in a sort of happy haze. He told his mum that Crowley would be coming to the restaurant and she’d gone to tell his father, which had made family dinner very awkward (Ezra’s father didn’t say anything rude, but his shock and disapproval was palpable). He struggled to focus on his homework and put his pyjamas on backwards when he got ready for bed. It was only after he was lying beneath his duvet replaying the memory of Crowley whispering in his ear that the reason for his distraction became clear to him, and he suddenly felt so dizzy that he was grateful to be lying down. He made a mental note to mention it first thing in the morning and fell asleep with a smile on his face.

“Anthony,” Ezra said as he slid into the passenger seat of the Bentley at a quarter-past-eight in the morning, “you called me ‘Ezra’ yesterday.”

Crowley looked at him with mock offense. “I most certainly did not, angel,” he drawled, flashing Ezra a quick smile to reassure him. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. I never call people by their first names.” Ezra knew Crowley was joking, of course, but he let it drop and fiddled with the cassette player until the familiar sounds of Queen filled the car.

*********

On Friday, Crowley parked the Bentley with a little more care than normal and waited outside Ezra’s flat. He’d been there for about five minutes when the street-level door opened to reveal Mrs. Seraff. “Come on up, dear! Ezra’s going to open his card before we leave.”

“Thank you.” He ducked into the relative warmth of the stairwell and followed her up the steps. Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t suppress a shiver (it had been rather cold out, and he’d forgotten his heavy winter coat at home). When he crossed the threshold into the Seraffs’ flat, he shivered again. This time, though, it wasn’t from the cold; Ezra was standing in the sitting room laughing at the card he was holding, and the sight made Crowley’s insides squirm.

Unfortunately, this time Ezra’s mum saw the shiver. “Anthony, you must be freezing!”

“What?” Crowley looked around in confusion, but Mrs. Seraff had already left the room in search of a coat.

Ezra laughed again from the other side of the room and Crowley’s heart jumped into his throat. “Hi, Anthony. Sorry about Mum, she’s probably gone off to find you a full set of snow gear.”

“Oh,” said Crowley faintly. “Right.” Ezra noticed that his friend looked unusually pale, but before he could ask why, his father walked into the room and leveled a glare at Crowley.

“Mr. Crowley.”

“Hello, Mr. Seraff. Thank you for letting me join you all for dinner tonight.” The usual bored-sounding smoothness had reappeared in Crowley’s voice, but Ezra allowed himself to be a little impressed with how polite Crowley could act if he wanted to.

They were saved from any potential rude interaction by the re-arrival of Ezra’s mum, who was holding a thick coat and a long red scarf. She dumped these things into Crowley’s arms and ordered him to put them on. At Ezra’s urging, Crowley did as he was told and immediately felt much warmer.

“Right, then,” said Ezra, grabbing his own coat off of the hanger. “Let’s go.”

The walk to the restaurant was mostly silent. Gabe had met the family on the sidewalk outside the flat because he’d just finished his shift at work, and even he was quiet. Truthfully, every single person was very nervous about one or more of the other members of their small party, but no one was brave enough to say it.

Dinner was pleasant enough after the food and wine arrived. A light conversation about school and work started up, and Ezra was pleased to see that Crowley had relaxed ever so slightly. He even smiled at Ezra’s mum and thanked her for the coat and scarf. From the look on his mum’s face, Ezra could tell that Crowley had charmed her. Gabe was thankfully occupying most of his father’s attention, leaving Ezra to bounce back and forth between the two conversations as he saw fit.

The problem came when the check arrived. Ezra’s father was reaching for his wallet just as Crowley asked a very dangerous question. “May I get the bill, sir?”

Under any other circumstances, this would have been nothing more than a well-intentioned offer in response to being taken to dinner by a friend’s family. However, this was not an ordinary situation, and to say that Mr. Seraff reacted badly would have been the understatement of the year.

“I can pay for this dinner myself, thank you,” Ezra’s father said coldly. “I don’t need your help. This is a family dinner - that you have butted in on, for the record - for _my_ family; it’s not a bloody charity case.”

Ezra watched the blood drain from Crowley’s face. “I didn’t mean to suggest- please don’t misunderstand me, I was just trying to be polite.” Crowley’s dark sunglasses hid his eyes, as always, but Ezra had the sneaking suspicion that Crowley was very close to losing his temper.

“He didn’t butt in on anything, dear,” said Ezra’s mother. “I was the one who invited him. I thought it would be nice for us to get to know Ezra’s friend, and this seemed like a good time to do it.” Next to Ezra, Crowley was sitting like a statue, shaking with barely-concealed anger.

Ezra was, of course, the next person to jump to Crowley’s defense. “Anthony didn’t mean anything by it, father. He was trying to be kind. Please,” he pleaded. “Give him the benefit of the doubt.” Under the table, Ezra reached across and placed his hand on Crowley’s knee, and Crowley stopped shaking.

Much to the surprise of everyone at the table, Ezra’s father fixed Crowley with a piercing stare and then sighed, defeated. “Thank you for the offer, Crowley.” He signed the bill and stood up from the table, and the other four (rather bewildered) members of the party followed him out into the night.

When they got back to the flat, Mr. Seraff and Gabe made their way upstairs after coolly wishing Crowley a good night and telling him to drive safely. Ezra and his mum, however, stayed outside for a moment while Crowley shrugged out of his borrowed coat and unwrapped the scarf from around his neck.

“Thanks,” he said with a small smile, handing the items back to Ezra’s mother. “And thanks for inviting me. It was…” Crowley trailed off, trying to find the right word, but Mrs. Seraff laughed it off and said she understood, but that she was happy he had come. When she too had gone upstairs, Ezra reached forward and pulled the sunglasses off of Crowley’s face, smiling a little at the look of shock he found.

“Anthony, I am _so_ -”

“If you say sorry, I’m going to get into my car and drive away and never come back again,” Crowley growled. “I chose to come to this. I knew what I was getting myself into. And besides, it could have been worse.” His thin lips quirked a little. “Your father actually properly  _thanked_ me, angel. It definitely could have been worse.”

Ezra sighed. “I still feel terrible.”

“Don’t.” Crowley leaned back against the hood of the Bentley and crossed his ankles. “You may have noticed that I didn’t get you a gift yet.”

Blinking in surprise at the sudden topic change, Ezra choked a little on his tongue before sputtering out, “W-what? Oh, there’s really no need, I’m just glad you could come to dinner.”

Crowley’s golden eyes closed with an exasperated sigh. “I haven’t got a gift for you at the moment because I wanted to ask you something first. Would you like to go on an… adventure - yes, let’s call it that - with me next Saturday night?”

A tiny voice in Ezra’s mind whispered that the way Crowley had said “adventure” sounded an awful lot like he’d meant “date,” but Ezra silenced that voice and told Crowley yes.

“Good. I have another question for you, then: what are your measurements?”

Ezra went from slightly puzzled to very confused in a second flat. "Measurements for what?"

"Y'know, like when you buy new clothes. Width of shoulders, size of waist, that sort of thing."

Having never bought clothes for himself that required knowing that type of detail, Ezra found himself feeling very out of his depth. "I haven't the faintest idea."

"You've never bought a suit?" One of Crowley's perfect eyebrows shot into his hairline in disbelief. Embarrassed, Ezra looked down at his feet and found that the dark splotch to the right of his shoe had become utterly fascinating.

"I've bought a suit," he told his toes. "I just bought it from a thrift shop, not some posh department store or tailor or what have you." It was really getting to be quite frigid out, and Ezra couldn't understand how Crowley was still tolerating it just to interrogate him about his _measurements_.

Crowley's eyebrow returned to its normal place on his face. "Right. I'm picking you up tomorrow at noon - you don't have plans, do you? - and we're going back to my place to get your measurements so I can send them to my tailor."

" _What_? Why?" Ezra snapped his head up just in time to see Crowley roll his eyes and slump a little farther down against the hood of his car.

"I'm buying you a suit, angel. It's for the... adventure." There it was again, that word. Ezra sort of loved it, but he also was very worried by what Crowley had just said.

"Anthony, I gave you a _used book_ for your birthday. You cannot buy me a _custom-tailored suit_. That's ridiculous even by your standards."

Apparently, the cold had started to get to Crowley because he folded himself into the Bentley and started the engine. He cranked down the window and met Ezra's eyes, clearly not caring whether Ezra thought he was ridiculous or not. "See you at noon." And then he pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the Bentley roared off into the frozen night, leaving a rather cold and very befuddled Ezra standing on the sidewalk.


	14. Fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The "adventure" (read: date) is better than anything Ezra could ever have hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, sorry this is up a little later than I wanted it to be! There were a couple things that were fighting me, but I think we got it sorted. Anyway: I've done a couple slightly cruel romantic-pining things here (sorry), but it's all coming together! 
> 
> I never expected this fic to go on this long - it's technically novella length, I Googled it - but I'm happy y'all seem to be sticking around to see what happens! I'd say there are likely going to be a few more chapters and an epilogue (yes I know I said that before, but it seems more probable now). 
> 
> thanks a billion for all the love on this fic, I'm absolutely blown away. Y'all are so kind and lovely and hearing from you in the comments makes my day!
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for mild language and our idiots doing heart-wrenchingly idiotic stuff.

It was the day of the adventure, and it was raining. In his bedroom, Ezra was trying to remember that he was going on an entirely _friendly_ celebratory outing and was focusing all of his extra energy on doing up the buttons on his new shirt.

When he’d dropped Ezra home after school the previous afternoon, Crowley had handed Ezra a black garment bag and a shoe box and told him to be ready at five the next day. Ezra had run upstairs and opened the bag to find a dark grey three-piece suit, a pale blue button-down, and a navy-and-grey patterned bow tie. The box contained a black leather belt with matching dress boots. He’d laid all of it out on his bed and just _stared_ , afraid that if he looked away for even a second it would all vanish into thin air.

The contents of the bag were the result of a very strange few hours spent in Crowley’s house the previous Saturday. Ezra had followed Crowley into a small room with three full-length mirrors and sat down on a chair in the corner. He’d very nearly blacked out when Crowley had turned to him and said “Kit off, then, angel.” At first, Ezra had tried to protest, but Crowley had schooled his face into a mask of professionalism and indifference (quite a feat given that his crush was _stripping down in front of him_ ) and told him to get on with it. After a few seconds of fighting with his jumper and the zipper on his trousers, Ezra had stepped in front of the mirror wearing his undershirt and tartan pants, and Crowley had taken quick but precise measurements in silence, jotting them down onto a notepad as he went. Finally, Crowley was satisfied and made a hand-flip motion towards Ezra’s clothes, which he’d hastily put back on. They’d then left the room and gone to the kitchen for a cup of tea, and neither of them had mentioned it again for the entire week.

Now, though, Ezra was nervous. The shirt was made of a fabric that felt like it had water woven in, and the grey trousers fit his arse and legs in a way that nothing else in his closet did. He was still in his socks and was currently frowning into the mirror above his dresser because he had no idea how to tie a bow tie and was making it up as he went along.

He’d given up on the tie - he’d ask his mother to do it for him when he went out to the sitting room - and had just finished buttoning his waistcoat when a buzz rang through the apartment. Crowley had arrived. His mum said she’d get the door, so Ezra pulled on the suit jacket and checked his appearance in the mirror.

“I look like a bloody business tycoon,” Ezra sighed. A little part of him suggested that he actually looked very nice, but he ignored that and tried not to think about what Crowley would think when he saw Ezra looking like such a fool. Grabbing his boots off the floor, Ezra stepped into the hallway and walked down to the sitting room to find his mum and have her do his tie.

There was someone in the sitting room, but it wasn’t Ezra’s mum (she’d gone to her bedroom to get a camera; Ezra had told her that he and Crowley would be going out in fancy dress, and she wanted to capture the moment). It was Crowley, who was leaning against the wall, staring out of the window, and looking so very handsome that Ezra couldn’t have stopped the blush from flooding his face if he’d tried.

In truth, “handsome” may have been the wrong word. _Sinful_ would have been a better one, and indeed it was the one that flashed through Ezra’s mind. Crowley was dressed in a black pin-striped suit that clung to his lithe frame like a second skin. A shirt the color of red wine was partially covered by a thin black tie, and his ankle-length trousers just barely brushed the tops of a pair of suede boots that perfectly matched the color of his shirt. As always, Crowley’s red hair was tousled artfully and his mouth was curled into a smirk, his yellow eyes hidden behind a different pair of dark sunglasses. Going by the grey trench coat on the sofa, it appeared that Crowley had remembered to bring something to keep warm this time.

“Hi,” said Ezra. Crowley spun around, and the greeting that had been on the tip of his tongue died there. He took a moment to take in the sight of Ezra in a suit, scrambling for words as his brain lost the ability to function.

Ezra noticed that Crowley’s mouth had dropped open a little, and he braced himself for the oncoming joke or teasing comment. It didn’t come. Instead, what Crowley said was “Need help with your tie?”

Since his brain wasn’t coming up with anything better than “nguh,” Ezra just nodded and let Crowley cross the room to do up his tie. It only took a few seconds because Crowley’s long fingers had a lot of practice with this sort of thing, but it was long enough that Ezra got a noseful of Crowley’s cologne and decided he’d like to have a candle that smelled like that.

Crowley finished tying Ezra’s tie and fixed it a little, stepping back with a small satisfied smile. “There,” he said. “Perfect.” Ezra assumed that Crowley was commenting on his tie, but Crowley was - of course - commenting on his entire appearance.

“Thanks,” said Ezra faintly, and he sat down to pull on his boots.

Ezra’s mum re-entered the room a few moments later, brandishing her camera and picking the best spot in the room for a picture. Crowley followed Ezra over to the fireplace, and right as the camera flashed, his thin hand (accidentally, he told himself) came to rest on the small of Ezra’s back. Consequently, the second photo that Mrs. Seraff took was of Ezra turning to look at Crowley with a startled grin on his flushed face and Crowley laughing down at him. It was the type of photo mums hang on the fridge of their son on his date on the way to a dance, the type of thing a man would keep in his wallet to show off his boyfriend to strangers. It was, in a nutshell, the type of photo Ezra had never been a part of before.

Ezra’s mum kissed her son on the forehead and handed him his overcoat. After returning the kiss, Ezra walked out the front door and down the stairs. Crowley went after him and had just stepped into the hall when he was halted by Mrs. Seraff’s hand on his arm.

“Thank you for this, Anthony. He’s… he’s been very excited. His father and I can’t do all this for him, which my husband regrets and unfortunately chooses to take out on you, but I’m glad Ezra’s getting to experience the higher side of life a little. If there’s anything we can do to make this up to you, please say you’ll let me know.” She smiled up at Crowley, whose chest twisted a little with the unfamiliar feeling of being cared for by a mum. “Have a good time, dear.” And then Ezra’s mother reached up and cupped Crowley’s sharp cheekbone, leaving her hand there just long enough for it to qualify as a tender caress. Crowley turned his head a little, nestling the side of his face into her hand, and she gave him another sweet smile before closing the door with a soft click.

Ezra was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “What was that about?” Crowley shrugged and gave Ezra a soft smile and then pushed the door open and walked out into the rain.

When they’d gotten settled into the Bentley, Ezra turned in his seat to look at Crowley, who had taken off his sunglasses and was tucking them into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going, now? I’ve been asking all week, and I honestly haven’t got a clue what we could be doing that would necessitate-” Ezra gestured vaguely down at himself “-all of this.”

“Do you want to have a guess?” asked Crowley as he pulled the car away from the kerb and cut off an old lady in a silver sedan.

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Do _you_ want me to have a guess?” Crowley smiled. “Fine, how many guesses?”

“If you don’t get it in three, I’ll tell you.”

Making an effort not to wrinkle his suit too much, Ezra sat back carefully in his seat and looked out the front window. “The Globe.”

Another smile. “No.”

“Erm, the opera?”

“Really, angel. Do I strike you as the type of bloke who frequents the opera?”

“You might do,” Ezra teased.

“I _don’t_ , thank you very much. Last guess.”

Ezra thought hard. “Some posh seafood restaurant?”

Crowley’s laugh filled the car. “No. I actually can’t believe you didn’t get it.”

“Anthony, I swear to - not God, that’s blasphemy, but someone - if you don’t tell me where we’re going _right this second_ , I’m going to dive-roll out of your car.”

“The Ritz.”

Ezra was confused. “But we’ve already been to the Ritz.”

“Yes, but they have more than three things on the menu, angel.” Crowley sounded a little like he’d been expecting this, so Ezra wasn’t surprised when he gave a more thorough explanation. “Look, last time you said you felt like you didn’t fit in. This time, you’ve got on a nice suit and definitely look the part - you looked fine last time, but I didn’t want to take you back and have you be uncomfortable again. Also, I’ve done things a bit more properly this time: I actually called ahead to make a reservation and explained who I am over the phone, so there won’t be any of the kind of hostility we saw last time.” There was a moment of pause, and then Crowley added, “Plus, I just really like the wine at the Ritz.”

That was a lot to absorb, so Ezra did his absorbing in silence for a number of seconds, stopping only when he noticed that Crowley was starting to panic at his lack of response. “The Ritz sounds lovely.”

“Really? We can do something different-”

“ _No_. It sounds really lovely. Thank you.” Ezra did his best to give Crowley a reassuring smile and was relieved when the other boy’s shoulders relaxed a little.

When they arrived at the Ritz, everything went exactly as Crowley had said. Ezra, who was still mildly terrified by the menu, asked if Crowley could order again. He was happy to do so and ordered seafood (crab and sea bass), which prompted Ezra to tease that his last guess _had_ been right because they were sitting in a posh restaurant eating seafood. Crowley hadn’t dignified this gross oversimplification of things with a response and instead waved their waiter over and ordered a bottle of white wine that he called a “2001 Montrachet Grand Cru.”

Much as he hated to admit it, Ezra _did_ feel more comfortable dining at the Ritz in his new suit than he had in his jumper all those weeks ago. He’d half-hoped that he would still feel the judgement radiating off of the staff and other patrons, that the people around him would somehow sense that he was an outsider, but that didn’t happen. He’d changed clothes and fallen into Crowley’s world without so much as a snag, and that made him wonder how many of the other people in the Ritz’s dining room were faking it, too.

Ezra also noticed that Crowley was nursing a single glass of wine throughout the meal. He took this as a cue to do the same. By the end of the meal, the bottle was far less than half empty, so it didn’t surprise him when Crowley grabbed it off of the table as they left. Again, Crowley gave an excessively generous tip to their waiter, which made Ezra blush a little.

They were walking to the Bentley when Crowley asked a rather strange question. “Do you remember what you said to me the last time we left the Ritz, angel?”

“I think I said something about it being a pity that we can’t see the stars from the city,” Ezra replied as Crowley opened the car door for him.

“Yeah,” Crowley said, sliding into his own seat and turning the key in the ignition. “That’s almost exactly what you said. I, erm, made some arrangements for tonight, but it’s raining and there are clouds out, so I had to change them a bit.”

Ezra stared at him. “You aren’t taking me home?”

“I promised you an adventure, didn’t I?” Crowley asked, a little uncertain.

“Yes, I suppose you did.” Ezra’s soft smile lit up the dark interior of the car. “So tell me, then, Anthony. Where are we off to now?”

A mischievous smirk settled onto Crowley’s face. “You’ll see when we get there. Put on some music, would you?” Ezra did, and they spent the next half hour singing along to classic rock as the Bentley sped through the streets of London. Before Crowley had started giving him rides, Ezra hadn’t been fond of that particular genre of music; he’d preferred classical and jazz. But, as it was with his taste in many things (like wine, for example, and cologne), he had grown to like it simply because it was something Crowley liked.

Ezra stopped singing as soon as he saw the sign for the Royal Observatory. He reached out and tapped the eject button on the cassette player, and a shaky silence fell over the car. “What are we doing here?”

Crowley parked the Bentley and twisted around to face him.  “I came here for the first time the day after we had our first dinner at the Ritz. You’d said that thing about wanting to see the stars but not having a telescope, so I thought…” he trailed off for a moment and pointed out the window at the observatory. “But they only let folks look through the telescope a few times a year, and tickets are really hard to get, so I talked to a bloke named Jim about it.”

“Oh?” Ezra’s voice was faint, nearly a whisper.

“Yeah, I just thought it was worth looking into so I could tell you about it if it was an option. So anyway, this bloke and I got to talking, and it turned out that he’s one of the big-boss manager types here, and then I found out that he saw Queen when they played Wembley in 1986. I talked to him for a bit and told him about my vintage albums and he told me about the concert, and I think he liked me because no one ever really talks to those guys except people who have questions about space stuff.”

“Anthony, what the hell are you going on about?”

Crowley flinched a little. “Right, sorry. So, Jim said he couldn’t do anything to get me advance tickets - I would have given them to you, of course, had I got them - so I was about to leave when he stopped me and said that if I wanted to come back sometime after hours, I could call ahead and tell him and he’d stay late to let me up to the telescope room to see the stars.”

“You… you’d _never_. You _didn’t_ ,” whispered Ezra, who was holding himself back from jumping across the car and kissing Crowley for all he was worth (not that he had any experience kissing, but he was suddenly tempted to give it a go).

Crowley nodded. “I did. I had it all set up for tonight, too, but it’s been raining all day and the clouds are blocking the stars. But I called Jim earlier, and he said he knows how to work the planetarium, too. So we’re going in there, if you want. It’s not the same, but it’s something.”

Ezra practically flew out of the car and sprinted around to the other side, yanking open the door. “Stand up,” he ordered breathlessly. Crowley unclipped his seat belt and got out of the car, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Without any sort of warning, Ezra wrapped his body around Crowley’s and tucked his head under the taller boy’s chin, relishing the feeling of Crowley’s silk tie against his cheek and the thin, strong arms around his waist.

A laugh rumbled through Crowley’s chest. “I guess you want to go in, then?”

“ _Of course_. Anthony,” Ezra pulled back from the embrace and looked Crowley squarely in the eye. “I don’t know what to- this is just- oh, _thank you_.” Then he grabbed Crowley’s hand and pulled him towards the planetarium.

Jim was waiting outside and gave the two boys a friendly wave. “Hallo there, Mr. Crowley! Who’s your bloke?”

Ezra opened his mouth to correct Jim, but Crowley said “Ezra Seraff,” so he just went along with it and shook Jim’s outstretched hand, pulling his hand out of Crowley’s to do so. He was a little embarrassed that he’d left it there for so long, actually, but he passed it off as just getting caught up in the heat of the moment and reminded himself forcefully that Crowley would never be interested in someone like him. 

“Thank you so much for doing this, Jim. Anthony’s told me a lot about you and your shared love for the music of Queen,” Ezra said quickly, hoping that the blush would fade from his face before they got to a place where Crowley could see it.

Jim laughed. “Yes, your lad has quite the collection of original vinyls! But we ought to be getting along, it’s cold out tonight,” he said, unlocking the door and letting them into the dark building.

The planetarium itself was lit only by the dull grey light of the screen on the dome. It made the whole room feel a bit Twilight-Zone, so Ezra shivered as he settled into one of the seats near the middle of the room. Crowley sat down next to him, sprawled out in his usual way, and gave Ezra a small smile. “Jim says he can give us the usual presentation, or he can show us anything we want to see.”

“Jim,” Ezra called over to where the man was standing by the projector. “Can you show us what tonight’s sky would look like if it wasn’t raining?”

“Sure, Mr. Seraff. One moment.” The dome went dark, and then it was alive with stars, and Ezra gasped.

“Look, Anthony,” he said, leaning over to rest his head on Crowley’s shoulder. He pointed out his favorite constellations, and Jim told the stories of how they got their names. Crowley didn’t say a word, but he smiled when Ezra laughed and listened raptly when Ezra talked in his over-excited whisper. It reminded Crowley of the day they’d gone to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, and he realized he loved it when he did something that made Ezra babble about something he found “absolutely fascinating, Anthony, really, did you know this?”

In a planetarium in London on the first Saturday of December, Anthony Crowley realized that he was in love with his best friend. The realization itself happened in an instant, but Crowley didn’t feel any different (well, he felt a lot more afraid, but no more in love) afterwards. Ezra was still talking, pointing at the dome and spouting facts like he’d never get the chance to do so again, and Crowley had a second revelation. The reason he felt no different after realizing he loved Ezra was because he’d done the actual falling in love a very long time ago.

The stars on the dome changed, and Jim began talking about the constellations that could be seen from the southern hemisphere. Ezra sighed happily and relaxed into Crowley’s shoulder, listening to Jim’s stories and trying to memorize every moment.

“This is Centaurus,” Jim said, illuminating a constellation. “This star here is known as Alpha Centauri, and it-”

“I’d love to go there,” Crowley murmured to Ezra, taking his focus away from Jim’s speech about the stars.

“Alpha Centauri?”

Crowley laughed. “I meant space in general, but I suppose, yeah, I’d like to go to Alpha Centauri.”

Ezra hummed into Crowley’s shoulder. "Me, too."

“Angel, if I could find a way to go, to leave Earth and go up there… would you come with me?”

Ezra’s mouth went dry and his mind went blank. _As a friend, as a friend, as a friend,_ he chanted to himself. “Erm,” he said. “I don’t know.” Crowley stiffened underneath his head, so he modified his answer to something closer to the truth (which was a very enthusiastic "yes"). “I think I might, though. Can’t have you up there all alone, can I?” Neither Crowley nor Ezra noticed, but Jim had stopped talking and slipped quietly out of the room, leaving them alone under the stars.

“You’d come with me?” Crowley’s voice was hushed and sounded very fragile, and Ezra didn’t dare look up at him.

Ezra shrugged, trying to be as casual as one can be while leaning against the shoulder of the person they fancy. “If you asked.”

“Oh,” said Crowley, and he smiled. “So, angel. Tell me about these stars.”


	15. Fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the holiday season, and Crowley has no plans (as usual), until he very suddenly has quite a lot of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***EDITED 6/27 at 1:30 am 
> 
> GUYS I am so sorry this took so long for me to post!! I had a busy day at work today, and then this chapter gave me a lot of trouble (more on this below). 
> 
> Again, the romance is imminently forthcoming, but not quite there yet in this chapter. Thanks for sticking around long enough to get to it!! I love you all a lot. 
> 
> So, if you read this chapter before the posted date and time stamp above, you'll notice that it's missing the second portion. I thought about it and decided that it seemed a little jumpy and slightly out-of-character, so I'm writing another version of things that I'll make into the next chapter. HOWEVER, I am very proud of what I wrote, so I am going to post it under a new work as an alternate version of things. The reason for this is because it deals very strongly with religious themes, and I know first-hand that the rampant homophobia in some religious circles is horrific, so I've decided to move that version of the second part of this chapter to another place. Please feel free to look at it if you'd like to; I am truly proud of it, but I wasn't sure it was the right verbal-aesthetic, so to speak. 
> 
> Anyway, you can find the original version here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378819
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for language.

“I’ve talked to my tutoring adviser, and she says that if your grades are still decent at the end of this term, I won’t have to tutor you anymore,” Ezra said from his side of the Bentley. A few weeks had passed since the great adventure, and things hadn’t quite gone back to normal. For one thing, Ezra couldn’t stop himself from looking at Crowley’s body in a very not-polite manner as soon as Crowley’s back was turned; the memory of that suit did _things_ to his insides. But the really important thing was that they had started spending their Saturdays together. It was never anything as dramatic as the adventure - that had been Ezra’s birthday present, after all, so he wasn’t expecting it every time - but it was always something. They’d gone to the cinema to see a film (even though Ezra usually didn’t enjoy them), gone on an exploratory mission across London to find the best chocolatier (even though Crowley didn’t typically eat many sweets), and now they were driving aimlessly through the city in search of something to do while it was raining.

“Oh? Well then, I’d better keep my grades where they are for the next week, then,” replied Crowley, chuckling a little. “It’s not like it’ll change things much; we’ll still go to our shop and revise after school anyway.”

“That’s true.” They settled into companionable silence for a minute before something worrying flashed across Ezra’s mind. “Hey, what are your plans for Christmas?”

Crowley shrugged. “Don’t have any. Never do much, really. We never even celebrated it when my mum and dad were around.”

“Why?”

“They were Jewish, I think. Dunno for sure though, they never really talked about it.”

“Oh,” laughed Ezra. “That’s quite a good reason, actually.”

“Yeah.” Then, “Hey, angel, d’you want to just go back to my house for a bit? Make a cup of tea? I can show you my vintage records.”

“Sure,” Ezra agreed, and Crowley turned the car around.

Nearly an hour later, they were sitting on Crowley’s sofa - it was a new one; still black leather, of course, but far more comfortable - drinking tea when Ezra had an idea. “Would you like to come to Christmas at mine?”

Crowley spat out his tea. “Would I- _what_?”

“You can say no,” Ezra said quickly. “I’m not trying to pressure you or anything. But I just thought, if you’ve never had a Christmas and aren’t going to be doing anything anyway, you might like to come.”

Standing, Crowley walked over and set his still-half-full tea cup in the sink, bracing his long body against it with his arms. He hadn’t looked at Ezra since the invitation and seemed to be concerning himself with staring holes into the black marble of the counter top. Ezra rose from the couch and joined Crowley in the kitchen, hefting himself up to sit on the counter, and waited for Crowley to respond.

“Your family wouldn’t like it,” Crowley finally said.

Ezra was reminded of something that Crowley had said to him after their first dinner at the Ritz, so he echoed it. “They don’t matter.”

That made Crowley look up. “They _do_ , and you know it. They’re your bloody _family_ , angel. I don’t expect you to bail out on them just because you have one and I don’t.”

Ezra reached over and placed his hand on top of Crowley’s. “I mean that they don’t matter to me any more than you do. Of course they matter, just - I don’t know, _differently_ , I guess… like you said, they’re my family.” He took a long, bracing breath, observing that Crowley did not appear to be blinking, moving, or even breathing. “Because they’re my family, though, that means I didn’t choose them. I sort of just… got landed with them. But you, _you_ I chose. So, you matter just as much, okay?”

“Right,” murmured Crowley. “Right.”

“Would you feel better about it if I called my mum and asked?” Ezra felt like he was trying to convince a small child to ride a rollercoaster. Crowley gave a short, hard nod, and Ezra patted his hand and left the kitchen to call his mum.

Crowley just stood there, feeling simultaneously weightless and numb, mind racing. After what seemed like half a second, Ezra walked back into the kitchen. “She says that she - and my father, she asked him as well - would love to have you come for Christmas.”

Crowley barked out a laugh. “Angel, I believe that your mother is alright with it, but I very much doubt that your father would ‘love to have me come’ to his flat on a special holiday and cock everything up.” He parrotted Ezra’s voice in a high falsetto, and Ezra winced.

“I sort of doubt it, too, but the offer still stands. I’d understand if you didn’t want to deal with my father, though. I wouldn’t be offended.” He wasn’t lying, exactly. He wouldn’t be offended, but he would be very disappointed (but he wasn’t going to guilt Crowley into it).

“I don’t want to bollocks up your favorite day of the year, angel.” Ezra frowned. He didn’t even remember telling Crowley that Christmas was his favorite day - it was, but that wasn’t the point - but clearly he had done, and Crowley had remembered.

Ezra smiled up at Crowley and found that he looked like a lost puppy, so he folded Crowley into a hug and replied into his leather-clad shoulder. “You won’t mess anything up, Anthony. I’d love it if you wanted to come.”

“You’re very stubborn when you put your mind to something, d’you know that?” Crowley mumbled into Ezra’s curls. Ezra jerked back and grinned, blue eyes twinkling.

“Is that a yes?”

Crowley sighed. “I suppose.” Before Ezra could say or do anything, Crowley grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the library, where an old (but beautiful and well-kept) record player sat on a table along the walls.

As Crowley pulled a record out of the box beneath the table, Ezra turned slowly in a circle, taking in the sight of the hundreds of books that were placed neatly on floor-to-ceiling dark oak bookshelves. He crossed to one of the shelves and brushed the tips of his fingers lightly across a crisp leather spine, shivering as he touched the indentations of the title _The Picture of Dorian Gray_.

From the middle of the room, Freddie Mercury’s voice boomed out of the speakers, and Ezra jumped. He stumbled backwards for a moment before being stilled by Crowley’s hands on his waist. “Easy there, angel.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you had all of these books?” Ezra let himself stay in Crowley’s arms for only a moment before spinning around and pressing his hands to Crowley’s chest. “This is _incredible_.”

Shrugging, Crowley flopped down onto a dusty chair and kicked his legs up over the arm. His body molded to the seat so perfectly that he reminded Ezra a little of a snake. “My dad used to buy them, I think. He didn’t read, so I think he probably just bought them because they’re valuable. He used to take his business friends in here for nightcaps after dinner parties to show off his collection.” Crowley let out a slow breath. “I didn’t come back in here for a while after he left, and when I finally did, it was only for that.” He gestured at the record player and let his head fall back against the other arm of the chair.

Ezra had walked back over to the shelf and was pulling _Dorian Gray_ off of it before he remembered to ask permission. “Can I…” Crowley waved his hand flippantly, so Ezra took that as a yes and cracked open to the publication page. “Anthony. This is a _first edition_.”

“Ngk,” said Crowley, eyes closed and hands tapping lightly to the beat of the music. Ezra placed the book very delicately back on the shelf and sat down in the chair across from Crowley.

“I want to open a book shop one day,” he said suddenly. One of Crowley’s yellow eyes cracked open to look at him. “I’ve wanted to for years. There was this little antique book shop down the street from my flat, you see, so I just sort of wandered in there one day, and the man behind the counter said that the shop had been in his family for generations. I used to spend a lot of time in there, just reading and talking to the shop owner. We were… I guess we were sort of friends, really. But then he died a couple of years ago, and he didn’t have any children, so the shop closed down.”

“What happened to the books?”

Ezra slumped back against the cushions. “No idea. I’d guess that some of his distant relatives got them, or maybe they were donated to the library or something.”

“Hmm,” said Crowley, closing his eye again.

“Anyway, so I’ve thought for a while that I’d like to open a book shop like that some day. Somewhere cozy where people can come to read and talk to me.”

“You ought to put a coffee shop in it,” Crowley suggested.

Ezra brightened a little and sat up in his chair. “That’s not actually a terrible idea.” Crowley gave a non-committal grunt, but his lips twisted into a little self-satisfied smile. “You know, Anthony, you could open a book shop with all of these.”

Crowley’s eyes flew open. “Angel, do I seem like the type to own a bookshop?”

“I suppose not.”

“Tell you what,” drawled Crowley. “If this bookshop-dream of yours ever becomes a reality, let me know. You can have-” he gestured to the shelves. “-those. For your shop.”

Ezra’s jaw dropped so far it nearly collided with his breastbone. “I could never! These are… some of them must be nearly priceless.”

“Ngk,” Crowley said again. “Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got enough money.”

“I could _never_ ,” Ezra said again, going a bit pink in the cheeks. “But thank you.”

Crowley slid off of his chair and walked over to the player to flip the record. “If you change your mind, you know where the books are.”

“Yeah,” Ezra mumbled faintly. “Right.”

The rest of that Saturday afternoon was spent in the library. Crowley dozed on his chair, getting up every so often to put on a new record or flip it over. Ezra busied himself with reading _Dorian Gray_ , relishing the feel of the thick pages and basking in the addictive smell of ink, paper, leather, and binding glue. Once, Crowley caught him with his eyes closed and nose between the pages and didn’t stop teasing him about it for nearly an hour. Around tea time, Crowley brought in some biscuits and a fresh pot of tea, and Ezra barely looked up from his book long enough to say a proper thank-you.

It was past dinner time and had gotten dark when Ezra marked his page with a piece of ribbon Crowley had handed him and closed the book. Crowley was napping, so Ezra took a moment to admire the graceful way his long legs draped over the armrest before shaking him awake to ask if he wanted something to eat.

Over pizza that night, Crowley asked about the Seraffs’ usual Christmas agenda.

“Well, usually we go to Christmas Eve service at the cathedral. It starts at eleven and ends just after midnight, so that when it’s over it’s Christmas,” Ezra said. Crowley was wearing his sunglasses because they were in public, but Ezra could tell that his eyes had gone wide because his entire body had stiffened. “I’m not expecting you to go to that, of course. It’s just… well, I like it, but I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

Crowley relaxed a little and went back to eating his pizza. “I think I’ll pass on that part, if that’s alright. I’m already doing Christmas, no need to make it worse by actually going to _church_ ,” he said with a little shudder. Ezra tried very hard not to take offense at that and sprinkled some parmesan onto his third slice.

“Anyway. We usually get up on Christmas morning around nine and do the whole day in our pyjamas. My mum makes something for breakfast - usually just eggs and toast because the big meal comes later - and then we all open our gifts. I make cocoa and my mum puts a chicken in the oven and potatoes on the stove, and then we all watch some rubbish American film called _It’s A Wonderful Life_ until dinner’s ready.” Ezra paused for breath and noticed that Crowley’s mouth had dropped open a little. “I guess it’s not really _dinner_ because we eat at like one in the afternoon, but it’s too heavy to be lunch so we just call it dinner. Anyway, after that we usually get dressed and go to a park to listen to carol-singers for a bit.”

“Blimey,” said Crowley after a moment. “That is a lot of tradition for one day.” He looked slightly pale, and Ezra wasn’t sure whether that was due to his aversion to the thought of tradition-type things in general or the thought of doing them with the Seraffs.

“You can come to all of it, if you want, or just some.”

Crowley’s Adam’s apple bobbed sharply. “No, I’ll do all of it.”

The brightness of Ezra’s responding grin nearly blinded Crowley. “Brilliant! I’ll tell Mum, she’ll be thrilled.”

They finished their pizza and Crowley drove Ezra home. Before Ezra got out of the car, Crowley asked if they could meet the next day to revise for the upcoming English exam. Ezra, of course, said yes and gave Crowley a very uncomfortable cross-car hug before jumping out of the Bentley and running upstairs to his flat.

"Mum," Ezra shouted, bursting through the door and running immediately to the kitchen. He levered himself up on the counter and gave his mother a wide grin. "Anthony's coming for Christmas."


	16. Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Crowley's first time celebrating Christmas, and he does so with the Seraffs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY. I meant to have this up wayyyy earlier, but it sort of kept on running with itself, so now it's really long. I think you'll like it, though (at least I hope you will)! 
> 
> As always, thanks to everyone who's been following this story through its ups and downs. All my love to all you guys, gals, and non-binary pals! 
> 
> To anyone who's new: hi!! Please feel free to comment down below to let me know what you think and share this if you wish. :) 
> 
> Warnings for language (I think? Maybe? Probably.) and reference to past family trauma - no abuse, just the stuff that's already been discussed in previous chapters.

Ezra had set his alarm for eight thirty in the morning on Christmas Day. He’d told Crowley to get there around nine, but he wanted to be awake and have coffee made by the time Crowley got to the flat.

By the time Ezra had fixed his hair, brushed his teeth, and pulled on the ugly Christmas jumper he wore every year, his mum was already in the kitchen. “Happy Christmas, Mum,” he said, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.

“Happy Christmas, my darling,” she replied, moving past him to pull a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator. “Does Anthony drink tea or coffee in the mornings, do you know?”

“Black coffee.” Mrs. Seraff quirked an eyebrow at that, but she made a few extra cups’ worth anyway. She handed Ezra a cup of tea and went back to making the eggs, ignoring Ezra’s offers of help and eventually kicking him out of the kitchen because he was asking too many questions and making her nervous.

Ezra took his tea over to the window and watched the street below for any sign of Crowley’s black Bentley. He stood there for a few minutes and ended up witnessing little Christmas-Day-interactions between Londoners. He could tell who’d said “Happy Christmas” to someone else by the smiles on the faces of the people walking away from them; he watched a man bring a sandwich to a homeless woman sleeping on the stoop of a closed shop; he smiled at a girl his age who was struggling to carry an over-sized package into the row of flats the next block over. Everything seemed better than usual, somehow. It all seemed brighter.

The week before, Crowley had mentioned that he knew Christmas was Ezra’s favorite day of the year, and he’d been right. What Ezra suspected Crowley didn’t know was why. Ezra loved Christmas for many of the same reasons other people did: a day to spend with family, especially good food, giving and receiving gifts, and just a general feeling of holiday cheer in the air. But what Ezra really loved about Christmas was that it seemed to be one of the only days of the year when people decided to be _kind_ to one another. There were always exceptions, of course (like the man who got offended when Ezra wished him a happy Christmas the year before because he did not personally celebrate Christmas), but Ezra found that more often than not, people seemed to make an extra effort to be friendly to one another. Also, given that Ezra was raised religious and still loved his faith very much, he also liked that he got to go to a special church service on Christmas Eve and be around other people who wanted to go as well.

All of this culminated in Ezra harboring a deep and undying love for Christmas, but he thought it best not to share those reasons with Crowley. Crowley, for all of his wonderful attributes, wasn’t at all religious and generally got more joy out of seeing people be rude to each other than watching them be kind, so he didn’t seem like the idea candidate to appreciate Ezra’s love for the Christmas holiday.

Ezra was lost in this train of thought when Crowley’s car turned onto the street and jolted him back to reality. He ran down the stairs and walked out the door just as the Bentley screeched to a stop in front of his flat. Crowley stepped out of the car, and Ezra’s jaw dropped open. He’d been expecting Crowley to look the same as always: nice clothes, perfectly styled hair, leather jacket, snakeskin boots, sunglasses. Instead, what he got was morning-Crowley, pre-coffee-Crowley, bed-head Crowley, and he found that he was rather infatuated with this version of events.

Crowley was wearing red pyjama trousers and a tight white vest underneath his overcoat. His red hair looked as though he’d done nothing more than run his fingers through it to tame it a bit (which was exactly what he’d done, as it were), and he was wearing a pair of beat-up plimsolls with holes in the sides. His sunglasses were missing, too, which caused Ezra’s heart to beat a little faster when he noticed. All told, Crowley looked a bit of a mess, which was exactly what the Seraffs also looked like. Ezra thought it was bloody _fantastic_.

“Happy Christmas, angel,” Crowley called, popping open the boot of the Bentley and giving Ezra a little wave. “D’you mind giving me a hand with these?”

“With what?”

Crowley shot him a half-hearted glare over the top of the car. “What’s with you today? How’s about a ‘Happy Christmas to you too, Anthony?’ or even a ‘Thank you for getting up at the sodding crack of dawn to come over for Christmas and bring me and my family presents, Anthony?’” Lack of caffeine made Crowley cranky, apparently.

Ezra walked over to where Crowley was pulling a handful of wrapped packages and gift bags out of the boot. “Happy Christmas to you too, Anthony.” He paused as a large blue bag was dumped unceremoniously into his arms. “You didn’t have to bring gifts, you know. We’re happy enough that you’re here.”

Crowley closed the trunk with a snap and made his way over to the still-open door to the stairwell. “Tell me, angel,” he asked as they climbed up one flight to Ezra’s flat. “Did your mum buy me a gift?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Then I’m justified in my present-buying, am I not?” Crowley knocked on the door with the side of his head, which made Ezra giggle.

“I guess so.”

Ezra’s mum opened the door, which meant Crowley stumbled into the flat (he’d been leaning against the door when it opened) and nearly dropped his armful of parcels. This set Ezra off laughing again, but he managed to help Crowley put all of the gifts under the tree - the bag he’d been handed was actually Crowley’s change of clothes for later, so he’d set that in his room - before ridiculing him gently for being such a klutz.

Mrs. Seraff poured Crowley a cup of coffee while they waited for her husband and middle son to “get their sorry arses out of bed and get out here for breakfast,” and Crowley sipped at it gratefully while having a light conversation with her about how his term at school had gone. If she noticed the strange color of his eyes, she didn’t comment on it.

“Actually, you’ll find out more about how this term ended when your son opens one of his gifts from me,” Crowley said with a charming smile. Across the table, Ezra was wondering which one of the packages or bags contained Crowley’s grades report and was very tempted to go open all of them until he found the right one.

Ezra’s mum was putting slices of bread into the toaster when she asked a very uncomfortable question (she didn’t know it was, but it was nonetheless. “So, Anthony. Ezra tells me your parents are out of town for the holidays. Where are they?”

Crowley shrugged and took a large gulp of his coffee. “I’m not sure exactly.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Seraff shot a questioning look at her son but tried to keep her tone soft and non-threatening. Ezra just made a small flippant gesture with his hand and sipped his tea. He was expecting Crowley to lie, of course, because he knew that this was the one thing Crowley would always lie about, and he wasn’t disappointed.

“They’re on the continent somewhere. Traveling for my dad’s business, and vacationing for the Christmas holiday somewhere in France, I believe.” The lie was smooth and practiced, and Ezra cringed internally at the thought of how many times Crowley must have had to have told the same story.

“They didn’t take you with them?” Ezra shot his mum a warning glance, hoping she’d take the hint and stop asking questions. Luckily, Crowley was saved from having to answer that by the arrival of Gabe and Ezra’s father.

“Happy Christmas, Mr. Crowley.” Ezra’s father’s voice wasn’t exactly warm, but it wasn’t as frigid as it had been previously, so Ezra counted that as a step in the right direction.

“And to you, Mr. Seraff.”

When breakfast had been eaten, they moved into the sitting room, and Ezra and Crowley passed out everyone’s presents from underneath the tree. It was unanimously decided that Crowley’s gifts to the family would be opened first. Ezra wasn’t sure what was in the various bags and parcels that Crowly had brought, but he was ever-so-slightly nervous about it for reasons that he himself wasn’t even entirely clear on. Apparently, Crowley had seen fit to buy two gifts for every member of Ezra’s family, and he was sitting on the floor with his long legs crossed in front of him as Ezra’s mum opened her first one.

“Oh, this is just _lovely_! Thank you, Anthony,” Mrs. Seraff cooed, shaking out a pale pink floral-printed apron and holding it up. Even Ezra’s father grunted approvingly in Crowley’s direction. The second gift was a box of imported black tea. To the surprise of everyone else in the room, Ezra’s mum stood up and crossed to where Crowley was sitting, leaning down to kiss him on the top of his head before returning to the sofa.

Ezra was torn between laughing and crying at the utterly gobsmacked expression on Crowley’s face. He’d known that his mum had grown to _like_ Crowley, of course, but kisses on the head were something she reserved for her sons. He knew that she didn’t know about Crowley’s parents and that Crowley didn’t know exactly what her gesture had meant, but he knew both, and it made his chest go all tight and start playing host to a funny tingling feeling.

The crinkle of tissue paper startled Ezra out of his thoughts, and he turned toward his father just in time to see a bottle full of amber liquid emerge from a gift bag.

“You struck me as a Scotch type of a man,” Crowley said from his place on the rug. “If you’re not, you can take it back and get something else.”

Mr. Seraff was staring at the bottle, his blue eyes wide. “No, this is… this is quite an excellent bottle, actually. Macallan’s a top of the line label.”

A tiny smile crossed Crowley’s lips for a moment, and he winked at Ezra. “Yes, my father used to enjoy that one, and I thought you might as well.” Ezra got the feeling that the bottle his father was holding cost about as much as the sofa he was sitting on (he wasn’t wrong; his estimate was a bit low, in fact), but strangely, his dad chose not to make any sort of snide remark about the rich and their frivolity.

“Thanks, Anthony.” After weeks of “Mr. Crowley,” it was a little jarring to hear his friend’s first name coming out of his father’s mouth, but it was a good sort of surprise.

Mr. Seraff opened a small package next and pulled out a pair of glass tumblers (“For the Scotch,” Crowley said), thanking Crowley for those as well. Gabe was next; he opened one of those slick-looking insulated water bottles and a pair of wireless headphones.

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want, but these seemed pretty alright.” Ezra noticed that Crowley was looking very happy with himself and rather thought that he deserved to.

“These are great, thank you.” Gabe was smiling a little bit, which was a big step up from the way he’d basically ignored Crowley at Ezra’s birthday dinner.

“Your turn, Ezra,” his mum said, giving Ezra a large smile and a nod towards the two packages on the table.

Ezra tore open the paper on the smaller of the two and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. _The grades report_ , he thought to himself, catching Crowley’s smirk. He unfolded it and stared, mouth open, at the numbers that were pressed there in dark ink. They were good grades, actually _good_ , well above passing, so Ezra checked again to make sure he’d read them right.

“I’m firing you as my tutor,” Crowley said, a hint of excitement running through his smooth drawl.

“No need,” Ezra replied. “I’m resigning.” And then Ezra was on his feet and pulling Crowley up to meet him, and they were hugging and jumping around in front of Ezra’s entire family, who were very confused as to why Ezra getting fired was a good thing. When they’d calmed down enough to stop laughing and sit back down, Ezra wordlessly handed the paper to his mum, not thinking for a second about whether or not Crowley would mind (Crowley didn’t, which was as much a surprise to him as it would have been to Ezra).

Ezra’s mother’s eyebrows shot up and she gave Crowley a megawatt smile that was very like the one Ezra had on his face. “Well _done_ , Anthony! This is excellent.” For half a second, Ezra thought he saw a flicker of pain pass over Crowley’s smiling face, but it was gone before he could be sure it was ever really there.

“Go on, open the other one!” This was Gabe, who’d thought that the whole grades-report thing was a bit stupid and was trying very hard not to say so.

“Alright, alright,” snarked Ezra, reaching for an oddly-shaped parcel on the coffee table. “I’m getting to it, give me a moment!” He ripped off the paper and gasped. Staring up at him from his lap was a small stack of four books, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ lying on top. Very delicately, he picked it up and confirmed that it was indeed the same copy that he’d been reading in Crowley’s library just over a week ago. The ribbon he’d used as a page marker was still in place.

Crowley was watching him nervously. “Something to start your collection. Y’know, for the bookshop.” Ezra didn’t say anything; he just sat very still and stared at the books in his lap, gently turning them spine-side up so he could read the titles.

“Come on then, which ones are they?” Ezra’s father asked kindly. He’d never really loved the idea of Ezra going to university only to open up a stuffy old bookshop, but he wasn’t blind. The way Ezra was looking at the books made him think that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

“ _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ by Oscar Wilde. _Dracula_ by Bram Stoker. _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelley. _The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde_ by Robert Louis Stevenson.” Ezra was breathless, unable to bring himself to look away from the books on his lap.

“They’re, erm… they’re all first editions. I checked.” Ezra could feel Crowley’s eyes on him, and he nearly dropped the whole stack when Crowley’s words registered in his mind.

“ _All of them_?” Crowley nodded. “Anthony, that’s insane. This is crazy. Please take some of them back, I couldn’t possibly accept-”

“Ezra John,” his mother interrupted. “The proper thing to say in this situation is ‘thank you.’”

“Right,” Ezra said, pushing down his embarrassment and finally raising his head to look Crowley in the eyes. “Thank you, Anthony. Really.”

“It’s not a big deal, angel.” Neither boy noticed the way Ezra’s family startled at the nickname. “I don’t have any use for them, and you love them. They’re better off with you.”

“Just… are you sure?”

Crowley rolled his amber eyes. “ _Very_. Now shut it, it’s my turn to open something.” With a charming wink in the direction of Ezra’s mother, Crowley reached out and grabbed a black box from the carpet in front of him - his gift from Ezra’s parents.

“We weren’t sure what to get you, you understand,” Ezra’s mum said as Crowley opened the box. “So, this is more of a symbolic gesture than anything else.”

A pair of silver keys were lying in Crowley’s palm. Whatever they were for, Ezra’s mum hadn’t told Ezra, so he was just as confused as Crowley. “What are these for?”

“They go to the flat,” Ezra’s father said, shifting uncomfortably in his place on the sofa.

“ _What_?” Crowley, Ezra, and Gabe were all staring wide-eyed on the direction of the Ezra’s parents, and it wasn’t entirely clear which one had spoken.

“I asked Ezra a few weeks back if you and your parents would like to come for dinner one night,” explained Mrs. Seraff. “He said your parents are out of the country a lot and that you haven’t got any siblings, so I thought you should know that you’re always welcome here.”

“We know it’s not exactly up to your _standards_ ,” her husband said, his tone of voice betraying the fact that he had really only agreed to this because his wife had asked _very_ nicely, “but Marie thought you would appreciate the gesture anyway.”

Crowley hadn’t said a word. He looked like he was frozen in place, and his eyes were wide and couldn’t seem to settle on any one object in the room. Ezra knew that look; it was the same one Crowley had gotten on his face back when Ezra had found out the truth about his parents. It was an even blend of panic and hope, and Ezra’s heart broke.

“Anthony? Are you alright?” Ezra’s mother was looking at Crowley like she wanted to get up and hug him but wasn’t sure whether that would be a good idea (which was, coincidentally, exactly what Ezra was thinking).

“Do you mean that? About me coming here?” It didn’t sound much like Crowley at all. The voice that came from Crowley’s body was tiny and fragile and very, very scared.

“Yes, darling. Of course we do.”

Crowley moved so quickly it should have been impossible. One second he was sitting statue-like in front of the fire, and the next he was practically in Mrs. Seraff’s lap, face buried in the side of her neck and tears running down his face. He was also muttering something. It was hard for Ezra to make out at first, but he finally caught on. “Thank you, thank you, thank you…” The words were on loop like a stuck record, words that Crowley rarely ever said and even more rarely actually _meant_.

Eventually, Crowley got his composure back. He pulled out of Mrs. Seraff’s arms, said a very sincere thank you to all four members of the family, and schooled his face back into its typical nonchalant smirk. He would have seemed perfectly normal had he not also been shaking very slightly.

The rest of the presents were opened quickly and efficiently. Ezra’s present for Crowley was practically nothing in comparison to the one Crowley had gotten from his parents, but Ezra was proud of it anyway (it was a pair of vintage sunglasses like the ones John Lennon had worn, and he thought they’d look quite good on Crowley’s slender face, which they did).

When all of the gifts had been opened, Crowley still looked a little unsettled. He had stopped shaking, but his yellow eyes were a little too wide, and he wasn’t as smooth and sarcastic as usual. Ezra’s mother went into the kitchen to get started on dinner, and Gabe disappeared into his bedroom to call his girlfriend, who was studying in France - unlike Gabe, she’d decided it was worthwhile to go to university.

“I’m going to put my things away,” Ezra announced, looking meaningfully at Crowley and intending for him to follow. Crowley, however, didn’t notice and kept staring at the wall, so Ezra left the room and set his books and other small gifts gently on his nightstand. He was just about to turn the corner to re-enter the sitting room when he heard his father talking quietly to Crowley.

“...point is, I still don’t trust you, Anthony.” There was a pause, and Ezra crushed himself up against the wall to listen, trying to silence his breathing. “But for some unfathomable reason, my son does, and that counts for something. So, if you ever need a hot meal, come here. If you need a place to stay, the sofa is yours.”

“Thank you, sir-”

“I’m not finished, boy. You’re welcome to come into my house, and I’ll continue to tolerate you spending time with Ezra, but know this: if anything should happen to him, or if he should get into trouble, or if you move too fast in life and leave him behind and take away the only friend he’s ever had-” Behind the wall, Ezra winced at that but kept silent, “-I will hold you personally responsible. Do you understand me, Anthony?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

It sounded like both of them had stood up, and Ezra was preparing to walk into the room when Crowley spoke again. “May I say something, though, Mr. Seraff?” Crowley sounded like Crowley again, all confidence and silky-tongued syllables, which was oddly relieving.

“I suppose.”

“You’ve got it backwards, see. I don’t make your son worse; he makes me better.”

Ezra was blushing a vibrant shade of scarlet when he entered the room a few moments later and sat down in front of the telly. There was idle chatter for a little while until Gabe finally hung up the phone and Mrs. Seraff had managed to get everything into the oven and onto the stove, and then Ezra’s father put in the film.

“This isn’t actually total rubbish,” Crowley said at one point, just loud enough for Ezra to hear.

“I think it is,” Ezra muttered (he didn’t, not really; whether he liked it a little because he actually thought it was good or simply because he’d watched it so many times was a different question entirely). They were silent for a while, just sitting next to each other on the sofa, until Crowley poked Ezra in the ribs at the line _“Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings”_ and whispered that they’d have to test that theory the next time there was a bell handy. It was a stupid joke, of course, but one that only Crowley could have made, and so Ezra laughed a little despite himself.

The film finished and dinner was ready, so the Seraff-family-plus-Crowley ate quickly before going to their rooms to get bundled up for the walk to the park. It occurred to Ezra as he was pulling on his (different, but no less ugly) jumper that he hadn’t truly had a moment alone with Crowley since he’d arrived that morning, and he wanted to see if Crowley was alright after the whole bit with the keys. So, he decided to skip the park and the carolers - for the first time in his life, to the best of his recollection - in favor of taking a walk with Crowley.

“Mum,” Ezra asked as he pulled on his boots. “Can Anthony and I just walk around for a bit? We’ll be back around the same time as you.”

She squinted at him, but agreed. “Sure. Just take your phone with you, alright?”

“Of course, I always do.” Crowley was leaning against the door frame, his slim body covered in jeans and a jumper and wrapped up in the same thick overcoat he’d arrived in earlier that morning, and he raised an eyebrow at Ezra but didn’t say anything. Ezra took that as a green light to his plan, so he pulled Crowley out of the door after him as he left.

As soon as he got Crowley alone, though, Ezra found that he had no idea how to begin talking about the keys, so the two boys just trudged along the street in a silence that was broken periodically by happy-Christmas-wishers and the sound of car horns.

“You really didn’t know?” Ezra jumped a little at the sound of Crowley’s voice. He shook his head, blond curls bouncing from side to side with the force of it.

“No. If I had, I would have warned you somehow.”

Crowley had stopped walking and was leaning against a blank expanse of wall, looking at Ezra critically. “Are you okay with it, though? Your parents - your mum, really - doing that?”

“You have to ask me that?” Ezra was a little taken aback; he’d assumed it was obvious that he was more than happy about it. “I’ve wanted to extend the invitation since the moment you told me about your parents, Anthony. I just wasn’t sure that my parents would be in support of it, but clearly they are.”

Shrugging, Crowley turned his face toward the sky. “Didn’t want to assume anything.”

“You should. Make assumptions, that is. When it comes to things like this, _always_ make the assumption I’m alright with it.”

A laugh, high and clear in the cold air. “There are no ‘things like this,’ angel. There’s just... well, just this.” He paused, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath. “I don’t know how to feel about the keys, though. It seems like a pity thing, and I don’t accept pity from people.”

“It’s not pity,” Ezra said, moving a little closer to Crowley. “It’s just… I don’t know, my mum being my mum. It’s what mums do: they see someone who needs love, and they just give it to them.”

Crowley scuffed the pavement with the toe of his boot. “Not all mums do that, angel.” When he said that, Ezra could practically taste the bitterness in the air, and he shivered a little.

“Sorry, I didn’t think.” The only response was a grunt, and Crowley slumped down a little more against the wall. They stood there for a long while, Ezra looking at Crowley and Crowley looking at the sky, both unsure of what else to say. Then, like a miracle, it started to snow, and Ezra started laughing at the weirdly poetic nature of it all. His laugh was contagious, apparently, because Crowley began to laugh as well, and so they stood and laughed at the world and at the keys burning a hole in Crowley’s pocket and at the unspoken words between them. They laughed like mad men because it was snowing on Christmas and because they were cold, and because neither of them could come up with a better reason than that.

On the walk back to the flat, Crowley bought himself a coffee and Ezra a cocoa from a street vendor who was wishing very hard that he could go home and see his family. They sipped their drinks quietly, walking so close together that they bumped hands every few steps.

“So, angel. Got any plans for Boxing Day?”

“No,” Ezra said. “But I got some really excellent books for Christmas from this very mysterious-looking bloke, so I thought I might give one of those a read.”

Crowley gave him a (very stupidly-lovesick-looking) little smile. “Oh? Better watch out, men like that can be dangerous. You never know what’s in those books.”

“Just magic, probably,” Ezra sighed. “Like usual.” A little happy hum from Ezra’s left told him that Crowley had heard that, and he grinned.

A young couple walked by, holding hands and smiling at the snow getting caught in each other’s hair. The girl leaned up and brushed some snow off of her boyfriend’s eyebrow, and he caught her chin and pressed his lips to hers chastely. It was a very sweet scene, and Ezra was politely pretending he hadn’t seen, but Crowley made an irritated huffing sound as soon as the couple was out of sight.

“That’s a bit Scrooge of you, don’t you think?” Over the rim of his paper cup, Ezra shot Crowley a wink.

“Maybe. But I’ve got a Scrooge-like reputation to maintain, you know.”

Looking back on it, Ezra wasn’t sure what exactly had possessed him to ask what he did. “Oh, so you’re not jealous of that boy, then? Don’t want a girlfriend of your own?”

“No. Not a girlfriend, no,” Crowley said shortly. Ezra was trying very hard not to think about the possible implications of that statement when Crowley turned the question back on him. “What about you, angel? In the market for a girlfriend?” It was light and teasing (almost), but Ezra felt strangely compelled to answer honestly.

“Not really my thing,” he said, tossing his empty cocoa cup into a bin as they passed it.

“What, dating?”

“No, dating sounds nice, actually.”

Crowley looked confused. “What’s not your thing, then?” It might have been the cold, or maybe the wonderful better-ness of everything associated with Christmas Day, but Ezra found himself feeling very brave all of a sudden.

He shrugged. “Girls.”

Ezra didn’t know what reaction he’d been hoping Crowley would have, but the real one far exceeded even his wildest dreams. It went something like this: Crowley choked on his coffee, spilled the rest of it on the ground, and stared at Ezra like he’d just confessed to robbing a bank. It took Crowley a moment to recover, but even then, he was flustered and acting very un-Crowley-like.

“Right,” Crowley said. “I didn’t know for sure that- I mean I didn’t want to- yeah, right, okay. Cool. Right.” The look on his face was very similar to one that cartoon characters get after they’ve been hit over the head with something very heavy, and Ezra was a little too happy about that.

“So, home, then?” Ezra began walking again, chuckling a little to himself when Crowley forgot to follow for a few moments and had to jog to catch up. It was, all told, a very successful Christmas Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all, the amazing AFlamingBisexual made a comic of the ending of this chapter and it’s INCREDIBLE. Here’s the link: 
> 
> https://sm0kingcrack.tumblr.com/post/186364953517/a-careful-kind-of-something-right-crowley-said


	17. Seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ezra has noticed something odd about the books Crowley gave him for Christmas and decides to get some answers. Things, shall we say, ~progress~.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it took me forever to get this one up, but I think you all will be happy with me. It's very dialogue-heavy again (so sorry!) but it was the only way I could make this work in a way I thought suited their characters. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think!! Y'all have been so patient with the romance in this piece, so you deserve only the best. Thanks to all of you out there who have taken the time to read this story! It's been so fun to write, and I can't believe how long it's gotten. You all are the best!
> 
> Warnings for language and mild discussion of therapy.

The books, Ezra decided, were even better than he could have imagined. He’d read two of them ( _Frankenstein_ and _Dorian Gray_ ) before, of course, and he knew the plots of the others, but there was just something so different about reading first editions. They smelled different than other books - which always smelled wonderful anyway - and had so much history attached to them. Currently, Ezra was grinning at the stain on page fifteen of _Dracula_ and wondering who else had been drinking tea while reading this exact same book at some point over the past century.

He was sitting on his bed doing exactly what he’d told Crowley he would be doing on Boxing Day, and it was nearly perfect. Only _nearly_ , though, because there was a tragic lack of a particular sarcastic and beautiful boy in Ezra’s general vicinity.

Said boy was, in fact, still sleeping in his house across the city; he had no plans, so he saw no reason to get out of bed even though it was well into the early afternoon. Ezra may have cured Crowley of certain habits, like drinking to the point of blacking out and being rude to everyone just for the hell of it, but sleeping too much was one thing that Crowley was determined to hold on to. He simply enjoyed it, and it had the added bonus of being something he could do without actually _doing_ anything, which was the sort of lazy paradox that Crowley found joy in.

It took Ezra until after tea time to notice a suspicious trend in the books he’d been given. He’d pulled on his boots and coat, loaded the books into his school messenger bag, told his mother he was going to Crowley’s, and was out the door and on the nearest bus within six minutes of this realization. By this time, Crowley had finally gotten up and wandered down into his kitchen (still wearing nothing but his pants) to eat a pathetic meal of toast and a slightly-fuzzy-looking apple, which is where he was when his doorbell rang.

Ezra’s brain blew a fuse and drained itself completely of conscious thought when Crowley opened the door in nothing but a pair of red silk boxers. Judging from his state of undress and the snarl on his face, Crowley had not been expecting company.

“What do you wa- wait, _angel_?” Before Ezra could say anything, Crowley’s expression changed to one of mortification, and the ornate metal door slammed shut in Ezra’s face. It appeared that Crowley had become aware of his lack of clothing.

While Ezra was still processing the sight of Crowley’s thin but surprisingly toned chest, his phone buzzed in his pocket. _Door’s unlocked_ , the message said. _Sorry about that. I’m upstairs putting on a shirt, come on in._ Ezra waited another minute to make sure that Crowley would have time to put on some proper trousers, and then he pushed open the door and kicked his boots off in the foyer, shaking some snow out of his hair before shutting the door behind himself. “Anthony?”

“Up here,” Crowley called from his bedroom. “I’m decent, you’re good to come up.”

“Okay.” Ezra padded up the stairs in his socks, suddenly thinking that he might have overthought the symbolism of his Christmas present and becoming very rapidly unsure whether he should say anything about it at all. When he walked into Crowley’s bedroom, Crowley was lounging on his bed, fully clothed and tossing a coin in the air absent-mindedly. Had Ezra not just seen him downstairs in his pants, he would have believed that Crowley had been up for hours and was simply bored with nothing else to do. However, given the circumstances, Crowley’s behavior seemed more erratic and nervous than anything else.

“You didn’t tell me you were coming by,” Crowley drawled, flipping the coin with a little more force than he had been. “I’d have at least had trousers on, had I known.” This was accompanied by a wink that made Ezra’s stomach squirm.

Ezra sat down on the other side of the bed. “I… I wasn’t planning on coming by. Figured you saw enough of me yesterday and thought you deserved a break.”

Crowley quirked an eyebrow and set the coin on his bedside table. “Oh? Something changed your mind?”

The panic that had begun to set in as Ezra climbed the stairs settled unpleasantly in his throat. “Yeah. I, erm, noticed something about the books you gave me.” There was a semi-interested grunt from Crowley’s side of the bed, so Ezra pulled the books out of his bag and laid them out on the black duvet. “I thought that maybe- I was wondering if…” He trailed off, unsure of how to ask the question without actually _asking_ the question.

“Wondering what?”

“Erm, why these books in particular?” There, that was better than an accusation that might have turned out to be false. “You’ve got an entire library full of vintage books, but you chose these four.”

Crowley looked a little surprised. “First editions.”

“Right,” Ezra said quickly. “Right, of course. You just picked the best ones - that was very kind of you, by the way - and the best were these. Okay.” He tried to make himself believe Crowley, to talk himself out of the nagging feeling in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t do it. Something seemed a little too coincidental.

“You don’t sound like you’re convinced.” There was a nervous edge to Crowley’s voice.

“No, it’s… I just made a stupid observation about something you didn’t even think about, that’s all.” Silence fell for a few moments. “I should go, I’m sorry to have bothered you.” Ezra rose to leave, but Crowley’s delicate fingers wrapped around his wrist.

“What was the observation?”

Ezra pointed to each of the four books in turn. “ _Frankenstein_. It’s about a man who’s more of a monster than the stitched-together thing he creates. _Dracula_ , which features an evil count whose entire purpose in life seems to be about being a monster and turning others into monsters as well. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ , the story of a young man who engages in all of the vices of the world and stays perfect while an enchanted portrait of himself shows the effects of all he’s done. _Jekyll and Hyde_ , which is about a scientist who devises a way to separate the good in a person from the evil, and in doing so creates a monster.” He stopped, breathing heavily, and Crowley cut in.

Crowley sighed. “I know what they’re about, angel. I did my homework before I gave them to you.”

“But why these? I love them, of course, but they’re all about darkness. All four. They’re all about-”

“People who are monsters, yes.” Crowley was staring at his lap, intentionally avoiding meeting Ezra’s eyes, and Ezra was confused. “As to why… I guess I thought they’d remind you of me.”

Puzzled, Ezra leaned forward and tried to look Crowley in the eye. He wasn’t able to, though, because Crowley had clenched them shut. “Why would they remind me of you any more than any other books?”

“I don’t know.”

“You _do_ , though. You have a reason, Anthony, I know you.” He wasn’t sure why, but he was completely certain that the reason was going to be very odd, very confusing, and very Crowley.

Sighing again, Crowley walked over to the window. “For my birthday, you gave me _Harry Potter_. I read it, did I tell you that?”

“No.” Ezra had to admit, he was a little surprised to hear that. He rose from the bed and went to stand next to Crowley. “What did you think?”

Crowley flapped one hand dismissively. “I liked it, but that’s not the point. The point is… the point is that _Harry Potter_ is a little piece of your soul, angel. It’s all magic and world-saving and good triumphing over evil. It’s all very _good_. It’s just like you, you see?”

A flash of anger went through Ezra’s mind as he predicted where this was going. “So, what? You think _Harry Potter_ is my soul, and those books-” he waved vaguely in the direction of the bed “-are yours?”

“Not exactly.”

Ezra rolled his eyes and turned to face Crowley, who kept staring out of the window. “Explain it to me, then.”

“Those books are my soul as it used to be. Monstrous, you know? Twisted and dark. I lived in my own misery and made it my goal to cause as much of the same to others. I fought back against people who tried to help me, and I hurt anyone who got too close. I made a lot of bad decisions because I thought they would make me feel better. Seriously, angel; you name it, and I’ve probably tried it. But nothing helped, really. Not until… until this year.”

“Oh?”

Crowley finally looked at Ezra. “Not until _you_.”

Unable to think of anything intelligent to say, Ezra just stood there staring for quite a bit longer than was socially acceptable, only stopping when Crowley started to fidget and dropped his gaze to the floor. “W-why me? What did I do?”

“You showed me that I can be better. Not just with grades and things, but generally.” All Ezra’s brain could come up with was a rather ineloquent choking sound, so Crowley smiled and continued. “I… started talking to someone, on occasion. Just to vent about stuff, y’know? She’s really nice, and she told me that I was right about you. You’re just _good_ , angel, and you make me want to be less of the person that I was. Less of ‘the books,’ if you will.”

“Mmm,” grunted Ezra.

“So that’s why I gave them to you, I guess. Because I used to be like them, and I’m not anymore.”

“Because of me.” Ezra’s brain was slowly picking up on what had been said, what Crowley had just told him, but it all seemed surreal.

“Yes.”

Ezra stared at Crowley again. “Wait. You have a therapist?” He was really very pleased by that, and it showed.

“Seriously? _That’s_ the part of what I just said that you’re going to dwell on?” Crowley laughed, then, and it made the room a little brighter.

“You don’t seem the type to ask for help, is all,” Ezra teased, giggling a little when Crowley rolled his yellow eyes.

“Yes, yes, go ahead. Mock me for my therapy, you asshole.” They grinned at each other for a minute, forgetting what they were talking about for just long enough to remember why they cared.

Ezra sobered after a little while and returned the discussion to the topic at hand. “Why’d you do it, though? Really.”

Silence fell back over the room, broken up only by the sound of Crowley tapping his fingernails on the windowsill.“Because you were so kind to me, angel. And you called me your friend, and you took care of me when I showed up at your flat in the middle of the night, piss-drunk and stupid. You were just… I don’t know, just there for me, and I wanted to tell you about my parents long before I did - I’d never _wanted_ to tell anyone before, and I never had. And because…” Crowley cut himself off and scratched the short hair at the nape of his neck.

“Because what?” It was soft, that question, because Ezra was making an effort not to let his wild hopes run away with his common sense.

“Because I don’t want to lose you,” Crowley said slowly. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I couldn’t let myself bollocks this one up.”

“Oh,” breathed Ezra.

“For the sake of preserving my remaining dignity, do me a favor and refer to my attempts at self-improvement via therapy as selfish behavior because of that, okay?” A small laugh laced with anxiety flew out of Crowley’s throat, and Ezra could feel the heat of Crowley’s gaze ignite the blush in his cheeks.

“Sure,” he conceded. “It’s selfish.”

Another laugh, this time more genuine. “Thanks.” There was an unspoken finality to that, and Ezra knew that Crowley didn’t wish to discuss it any more. He took the hint and walked back over to the bed, grabbing the books and placing them delicately back into his bag.

“I should be going, then.”

“Right,” said Crowley from the window. “Okay.”

Ezra was almost to the door when he realized what he’d left unsaid, and he set his bag down. “Thank you.” Apparently Crowley hadn’t been expecting Ezra to speak again, because he jumped a little and smacked his hand into the wall, letting out a string of mumbled curse words. “Honestly, Anthony. Thank you for what you said.”

“Of course.” Crowley’s tiny smile was visible from across the room, and Ezra smiled back.

“And, erm…” He wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to, so he just repeated what Crowley had said. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, too. And I don’t want to lose you, either. Not… not ever.”

Crowley’s laugh rang out across the room again. “You say that now. Just wait until you’ve got into some posh university and you meet a nice bloke - tall, dark, and handsome, I’m sure - and he sweeps you off your feet. You’ll forget all about me, then.”

“No,” said Ezra with a vigor that surprised both boys. “I really don’t think I will.”

“No?”

Desperate to change the atmosphere to something lighter, Ezra winked clumsily. “Tall, dark, and handsome isn’t really my style.” His style, of course, was Anthony Crowley, but he wasn't about to say  _that_ out loud.

“Ngk,” Crowley said, but his lips twitched just enough to be considered a smile, so Ezra was happy.

As he turned to leave again, Ezra noticed something odd. There had always been a wine bottle sitting on the shelf of Crowley’s bedroom; it had been there the first time Ezra had come over, and it was still there. The strange thing was that now there were other things on the shelf with it, including a second empty bottle. Without asking permission, he set his bag down (again) and walked over to the shelf to get a closer look.

Once he was eye-level with the shelf, Ezra recognized the bottles on sight: the two bottles of wine he’d shared with Crowley over dinners at the Ritz. Wedged between the bottles were _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ and _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone_. The rest of the shelf was covered in small slips of paper. Ezra picked one up and turned it over, smiling when he saw it was a torn corner of a pamphlet from the Royal Observatory. There was a chocolate wrapper from what he and Crowley had decided was the best chocolatier in London and a ticket stub from the film they’d gone to see. Ezra was so busy looking at the contents of the shelf that he didn’t realize Crowley was behind him until Crowley spoke.

“So I guess that’s me found out, then.” Crowley sounded downright terrified, so Ezra spun around to face him. Crowley’s well-defined cheekbones had gone a rather deep shade of red, and he was looking at Ezra like he’d just been caught by his mum with his hand in a jar of forbidden sweets. None of this made sense to Ezra; he had his own collection of things from his outings with Crowley set around his room in the flat (he, of course, kept them for romantic reasons, and he was sure Crowley kept them for platonic ones).

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a shelf full of things that remind me of you, angel. What the fuck do you think it means?” Ezra surprised himself by noticing that Crowley’s use of foul language didn’t even faze him anymore, but he quickly realized that there were more important things to address.

“Probably that you enjoy spending time with me,” he said coolly. He was trying to extinguish down the little flame of hope that was rising in his chest but wasn’t having much success.

“Yes, I do. But…” Crowley looked for a moment as though he wanted to say something, and then promptly made a face like he’d just swallowed his own tongue.

“But?” That little flame was growing, much to Ezra’s frustration, so he doused it with a mentally-conjured bucket of water. It didn’t work.

“But nothing. Nevermind.” The flush in Crowley’s cheeks was spreading down his face, so the water bucket in Ezra’s mind became a garden hose.

Some very evil part of Ezra’s stupid love-struck brain decided that it would be a good idea to push further. “So it’s just that, then?”

“Stop,” Crowley said quietly. “Don’t… just leave it. You won’t like the answer if you keep pushing.”

Cue the mental fire hydrant and fire hose.

“Don’t lie to me, Anthony,” Ezra said sternly, his own cheeks turning an obnoxious shade of pink. “You said you wouldn’t.”

“I’m not lying, I’m simply not offering all the information. Just leave it alone, alright? Don’t… don’t give me hope.” At that, Ezra stopped trying to put out the fire because it had consumed his entire body, and he took a fraction of a step closer to Crowley.

“What’s wrong with hope?”

Crowley looked like he was about to pass out, his golden eyes wider and darker than Ezra had ever seen them and his breaths coming in short, uneven bursts. “ _Don't_ , Ezra. Or I’m going to- gonna do something so stupid.” Ezra took another small step forward, leaving only about a foot between his chest and Crowley’s. A shudder shook Crowley’s lean body, and then Crowley bolted backwards and tripped onto the bed.

That snapped Ezra out of it. Instantly, his nerves were back, and he muttered an apology before grabbing his bag and practically sprinting out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “Stupid, you’re so stupid. He doesn’t- he couldn’t- Ezra, you _daft idiot_ ,” he hissed under his breath, lacing up his boots as quickly as possible with his shaky fingers. Ezra’s hand was on the door handle when he felt the air behind him shift, and he knew Crowley was there.

“Do you remember what I said, the day I told you about my parents?”

Ezra froze, hand still wrapped around the doorknob. “Which part?” he asked without turning around.

“Two things.” Ezra could feel Crowley’s breath blowing softly through his curls. “I said ‘You make me go stupid’ and ‘You terrify me.’ Do you remember?” Crowley’s voice was strangely level, as though he were just asking Ezra a question on his chemistry homework.

“Yes.”

“Both of those things are still true.”

Very slowly, Ezra turned around and found himself almost chest-to-chest with Crowley, whose voice may have been steady but whose body was very much not. “Why does that matter?”

“Because I’m very afraid that if I do what I want to do, you’re going to run. But you’re also standing here and looking like you always do and staring at me with those bloody fantastic blue eyes and just turning my brain to stupid-soup, so I really want to do it.” Crowley’s eyes were locked on Ezra’s, and he moved ever so slightly closer. Instinctively, Ezra stepped back, and so he found himself stuck between Crowley and the door.

“Do what?”

Crowley shivered again. “I’m going to tell you something, Ezra.” Ezra jolted at the use of his first name, but if Crowley noticed that, he didn’t let on. “If it’s something you don’t want to hear, then go. Go _now_ , and we’ll pretend this never happened, and we’ll keep being friends.”

“Tell me,” Ezra said, the fire inside of him burning so hot it felt like he was melting into a puddle on the tile floor of Crowley’s foyer.

“You are my best friend, but every time I’m around you, I just want to kiss you so badly that it actually might be killing me a little bit not to do it.”

Ezra’s brain short-circuited, so the only thing he said was “Oh.”

Crowley looked like Ezra had hit him in the stomach with a lead pipe. “Right. Now you know, so I’ll just…” He backed away from Ezra for the second time in a very small number of minutes, and Ezra panicked.

He’d meant to say _“Okay, then,”_ or _“I’d like you to kiss me, please,”_ or even _“Go ahead, you stupid bastard.”_ Any of those things would have been preferable to what he ended up saying, which was “I’ve never kissed anyone before, I’ll be rubbish.”

Crowley paused mid-step and whirled back around. “That’s not a no, is it?”

“It’s not, but you should know that I really have no idea what I’m doing,” Ezra said, hastily dropping his eyes from Crowley’s eyes to Crowley’s socks, which he noticed were black but had pink stitching on the toes. The feet within those socks were moving very rapidly toward him, but Ezra couldn’t seem to get his own legs to move at all.

“I’ll teach you,” Crowley said, back to almost-but-not-quite touching Ezra again.

“It’s going to be bad.” Really, Ezra had no idea why he was still protesting, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

“It won’t.” To Ezra’s horror, Crowley was absolutely beaming. Once again, Ezra really wanted to say something suave and cool in the hopes of saving a small sliver of his dignity. This, needless to say, was not what happened.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Fortunately, Ezra didn’t have the time or mental energy to say anything else quite so obtuse because Crowley’s closed mouth was quite suddenly and quite wonderfully crushed against his.


	18. Eighteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things following the kiss are a bit awkward and a bit wonderful, and Ezra comes out to his family*. 
> 
> *This is not a traumatic coming-out experience, so please don't be worried about that!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning/evening/afternoon/whatever to all of you!! It's an absurdly late hour where I am, but I needed to finish this chapter and get it up for you all before going to bed. I'd like to say that I'm totally flabbergasted by all of the love and positive feedback y'all have given to this story and to me, and I want you to know that I love you for it! Thanks for all of the support, my dears. 
> 
> A note on Ezra's sexuality, which is discussed in this chapter. I don't define it, and that's intentional; much like Crowley's bisexual-almost-I-guess, I think Ezra fits a couple different definitions imperfectly. This is (in my opinion - you are certainly entitled to your own, so please don't hear me being preachy here) pretty much in line with the way they're laid out in the book and TV series, where they are definitely a grey area and don't really belong anywhere. So please, feel free to think of Ezra and Crowley as belonging to whichever group you think they fit best in; the label is yours to choose if you'd like to give them one - if not, join me in leaving them unlabeled! 
> 
> As always, I love hearing what y'all think of the new updates, so feel free to leave kudos if you haven't already and post a comment! I promise I'll read it and respond to the best of my ability. 
> 
> Warnings here for language (maybe? I don't know, it's too late for thinking) and some discussion of homophobia.

Having never been kissed before, Ezra had no idea what to do, so he just stood with his back pressed up against the door and his front pressed up against Crowley and let himself get kissed. It was short and chaste, but when Crowley pulled away, Ezra’s lips were tingly and his vision had little black spots dancing across it. A long moment passed before Ezra was able to focus on Crowley, who had shoved his hands into the pockets of his too-tight jeans and was looking at Ezra with a happy little smirk on his face.

“Erm, sorry.” Ezra pulled one of his hands away from the cold metal of the door and ran it through his curls, watching Crowley and trying to clear his mind of the hazy fog that had settled there.

“What for?” Crowley’s eyes were full of laughter, but he had enough self-control not to laugh out loud, which Ezra was grateful for.

“I didn’t kiss you back. Not… not because I didn’t want to - I _do_ , I would very much like to kiss you - but I don’t know how and it was over so fast and…” As Ezra was talking, Crowley closed the distance between them again, making Ezra lose his train of thought and gulp down a large breath of air. They were standing chest-to-chest again, and Crowley’s eyes kept drifting down to Ezra’s lips.

“That’s alright,” Crowley said, pushing his face a little closer. Ezra’s nose brushed against Crowley’s, and he felt like he was breathing in the air that Crowley was breathing out. A pair of elegant hands settled themselves on his waist, and Ezra stopped breathing entirely. “Hey, angel. Calm down, it’s only me.”

The problem with not breathing is that it causes the brain to not receive enough oxygen, which is what Ezra blamed for what he said next. “Yes, but that’s exactly the problem. You’re you, which means you know what you’re doing, and you’ve got loads of experience, and I haven’t. I’m… I’m panicking because I can’t even kiss the bloke I fancy even when he’s actually kissing me, and you’re just so cool and collected and gorgeous and _bloody hell_ , I’m babbling, please shut me up.”

By way of answer, Crowley reached down and grabbed one of Ezra’s hands, tugging it up to the left side of his lithe chest so Ezra could feel his heartbeat. It was racing, galloping really, and that made Ezra feel a little better. “I’m not cool or collected, angel. It might seem like it, but I’m not.”

“You still know what to do,” Ezra protested feebly, pressing his palm more firmly against Crowley’s shirt.

“I’ve already said I don’t care that you don’t have experience. The only thing that matters is that you _want_ to kiss me, and you’ve said you do.”

“I do, really. It’s just-”

“You worry too much,” Crowley said, and cut Ezra off by bending his head and pressing their lips back together again. This time, Ezra wasn’t expecting it - he should have been, given the proximity in which they were standing to each other and the fact that he’d basically just given Crowley the green light to do so - and so his mouth fell open a little. He was a little afraid when Crowley’s lips parted under his, worried that he’d suddenly have a tongue in his mouth and no idea what to do about it (he did read books and watch the occasional film, so he was aware of the concept of snogging, and he thought it was very weird), but Crowley was being a gentleman.

After a brief second of Crowley’s mouth shifting against his, Ezra became aware that Crowley had slotted their mouths together like a very nice and altogether lovely jigsaw puzzle, meaning that his top lip was trapped between Crowley’s lips and that he could feel Crowley’s hot breath against his skin. The dizzying feeling accompanying this observation felt a little like vertigo, so he stopped thinking about kissing Crowley back and it just sort of _happened_. One moment he was trying to figure out exactly how this kissing thing works when one party sucks on the other party’s top lip, and the next he was wrapping his arms around Crowley’s neck and burying his fingers in soft, red hair and pressing his lips to Crowley’s like he was trying to climb into Crowley’s mouth.

There was a little “mmph!” of surprise that was muffled against Ezra’s lips, and then Ezra pulled away and went back to staring at the floor, unsure of how Crowley would react to his (very passionate but also very unskilled) kissing. His hands were still in Crowley’s hair, and he didn’t know what to do with them, so he just left them there.

“See?” Ezra smiled at the shakiness that had appeared in Crowley’s voice. “Nothing to worry about.” When Ezra tilted his head up, Crowley was looking at him with a sort of hunger in his golden eyes, and it scared Ezra a little. This must have shown on his face, because Crowley pushed back a little and frowned. “What’s the matter, angel?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Ezra shook his head a little and scratched his fingers through the short hair at the back of Crowley’s neck, causing Crowley to shiver.

“Really, though,” said Crowley as he backed out of Ezra’s embrace so he could link their fingers together and walk toward the kitchen (in his defense, the foyer isn’t the best place to have serious conversations with one’s significant other, and quite a lot of serious conversations had already transpired there that day). “Please tell me what’s wrong. Also, do you want tea?”

The non-sequitur made Ezra stare blankly at Crowley for a moment. “Erm… tea? Yes, tea would be lovely.” Crowley grunted and pulled Ezra across the floor to the stove, where the empty kettle was waiting.

For the following few minutes, Ezra was dragged around the kitchen to various cupboards and appliances as Crowley made tea. Unsurprisingly, neither of them was exactly willing to let go of the other’s hand. Ezra thought it might be wise to wait until the tea had been made to talk to Crowley about the thing that was worrying him, and so it wasn’t until they were sitting together on the sofa - they’d stopped holding hands, then, because it’s very difficult to sit on a sofa and hold both a cup of tea and someone else’s hand at the same time - that he finally told Crowley what he’d been thinking in the foyer.

“I want to go slow,” Ezra blurted.

He was expecting Crowley to laugh or tell him that was an unreasonable demand, but Crowley just nodded and said he’d been planning on it.

“Oh.” Ezra looked over Crowley’s shoulder at the vast array of houseplants, chucking all of his arguments about why they shouldn’t rush this into a mental rubbish bin. “I just… don’t know how far I want to go, really. Sex doesn’t sound that interesting, but I don’t want to disappoint you, so I’ll do whatever you want-”

Just like he had before, Crowley cut Ezra off by scooching closer and looking him in the eye. “You don’t have to know anything right now. We can figure it out.”

“We can?”

“Yeah. And no matter what, I won’t be disappointed. I couldn’t be, not ever.” Crowley’s voice was soft and gentle, and Ezra wanted to kiss him again very badly. It took him a moment to realize that he actually _could do that_ , but when he realized it, he leaned in and brushed his lips over Crowley’s.

“You’re wonderful,” Ezra murmured, setting his tea down on the coffee table and reaching up to stroke Crowley’s jaw. He traced the dark lines of Crowley’s tattoo with just the tips of his fingers, relishing the way his hand fit along the curve of the other boy’s cheek.

Eventually, two mugs of cold tea were sitting on the coffee table and two boys were curled up on the sofa. Ezra’s feet had made their way under Crowley’s thighs - he’d kicked off his boots when they’d gotten to the sofa - and Crowley’s entire upper body was resting against Ezra’s broad chest. There was something on the telly, but no one was watching it (except for maybe the plants because who really knows what plants do?), and Ezra had taken to softly scratching Crowley’s scalp with one hand as they sat together. This was something Crowley really enjoyed, as it turned out, and he kept making soft little sighing sounds and humming in the back of his throat when Ezra ran his fingers a certain way or tugged a little bit just _there_. Those noises were making Ezra’s heart skip beats, but he found that he didn’t care.

“It’s getting to be dinner time, angel. You should go home.” It was the first time either of them had spoken during nearly an hour of cuddling. Right at that exact moment, Ezra’s stomach growled, which made Crowley break out into peals of laughter. “Case in point.”

“Alright. Shift, then.” With a lazy smile and a wink, Crowley stood and handed over Ezra’s discarded boots.

As he was tying them, Crowley grabbed the teas from the table and took them over to the sink to wash out the mugs. Ezra could feel Crowley’s eyes on him every few seconds, and he grinned to himself at that. When he stood up, Ezra took a moment to enjoy the sight of the boy he loved doing something as mundane as washing dishes and sneaking glances in his direction every so often. Still smiling, he waved goodbye to Crowley and was in the foyer putting on his coat when Crowley sauntered in, smirking.

“Come out on a date with me, angel?” The question caught Ezra off guard, and he took a reflexive step backwards.

“Erm… yes, of course. When?”

A shrug. “Tomorrow night?”

“Okay,” Ezra breathed. “Right.” As he hefted his bag of books onto his shoulder, he considered asking Crowley to come home with him for dinner. The keys were an open invite, of course, but Crowley hadn’t invited himself over or even asked if he could come. The question was almost out of Ezra’s mouth when he became aware that he would have to tell his parents about the kissing and the date and that Crowley probably shouldn’t be around to see his father’s reaction, so he decided not to ask.

“See you tomorrow, angel.” Crowley looked uncomfortable, and it took Ezra a second to figure out why. Ordinarily, Ezra would just leave, or on some occasions there would be a hug, but nothing past that. Nothing, say, in the realm of a goodbye kiss.

This was something that needed to change in light of the day’s events, so Ezra walked forward and squeezed Crowley’s hand. It was a green light, a go-ahead-and-kiss-me-you-daftie signal, and Crowley picked up on it. The kiss was short, as all of them so far had been, but Ezra’s face was hot when he pulled away and a stupid-looking smile had crawled its way across Crowley’s flushed lips.

On the bus ride home, Ezra tried to rehearse in his head what he would say to his family. Had he been anyone else (or if he’d had any prior relationship experience), he probably wouldn’t have felt quite the same sense of urgency to inform his parents of the change in the nature of his relationship with Crowley, but he was Ezra Seraff and keeping secrets from his family was not something he did. Unfortunately, by the time the bus pulled to a stop at the street corner near his flat, Ezra was no closer to having any good ideas about how to break the news.

Needless to say, it happened very suddenly and very not-eloquently over dinner, which had been a quiet affair right up until Gabe started talking about his girlfriend and insisting that Ezra should get one. “Seriously, Ez. It’s worth it, I promise. Girls like blokes who are sensitive and kind, and you are, so it’ll happen sooner or later.”

Ezra gritted his teeth. “I don’t _want_ a girlfriend, Gabe.”

“Sure you do! You just haven’t found the right girl yet.”

“No, I really am _quite_ sure that I don’t want a girlfriend.” Ezra tried to leave it at that for the moment; he wanted to get his father and mother alone after dinner and tell Gabe later, but that was looking less likely by the second.

Mr. Seraff was looking at Ezra with concern from across the table. “Why not, Ezra? Your brother’s right, you know - the right girl will love you for who you are.”

“I just…” His brain couldn’t come up with anything clever to say, anything to lessen the blow, so Ezra set down his fork and just came out with it. “I just don’t want a girlfriend, and I never will, because I like _blokes_.” Well, he really liked one specific bloke, but he thought it better just to leave it as a blanket statement and worry about semantics later.

The reactions were mixed. Gabe goggled at him, jaw hanging open. Ezra’s father was turning a shade of reddish-purple that could be described best as “beetroot.” Ezra’s mum, however, gave Ezra a small smile and reached over to take his hand. She was also the first one to speak.

“I thought you might,” she said, and it was Ezra’s turn to look shocked. “Oh come now, darling. You’re my _son_ , and I see the way you look at him.”

Gabe found his voice at that. “Him? Him who?”

“Anthony Crowley, dear.” Mrs. Seraff’s voice was soft and placating, but her words made her husband’s face go from red to white in under half a second. Ezra tried not to be frightened by the sight of his father’s fingers clenching into fists. He knew that his dad would never actually hurt him, of course, but it was still more than a bit intimidating.

Still looking shell-shocked and clearly taking a while to fully process everything, Gabe struggled to find words. “You’re… you’re _gay_? Gay for Anthony Crowley?”

“Yes,” Ezra said calmly.

“Oh.” His brother took a long drink of water. “Cool, I guess. Dad, can I be excused? I have the night shift tonight.” At a grunt from his father, he put his dishes in the sink and nearly ran out of the kitchen.

A heavy silence hung over the dinner table. No one had touched their food since Ezra’s announcement, and both of Ezra’s parents were staring at him. “I guess you’d probably like to ask some questions.”

“You’re damn right.” On the tabletop, Ezra’s father’s fists tightened a little. “How long have you been seeing him?”

“I… I’ve fancied him for a while, father, but I kissed him for the first time today, and we’re going on a date tomorrow night.” Ezra hadn’t thought it was possible for his father’s face to lose any more blood, but he had been wrong.

“You kissed him?” This was Ezra’s mother, sounding quite pleased and smiling at her son, which earned her a glare from her husband.

“Yes.”

Ezra’s father huffed, but something in his demeanor changed dramatically when he caught his wife’s eye, and his next question was entirely unexpected. “First kiss, then?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Ezra was sure he hadn’t heard right.

Mr. Seraff rolled his eyes. “Was it your first kiss ever, Ezra?”

“Erm, yeah.” The blush that had started to spread across Ezra’s face when the conversation had first begun was now well down his neck and brushing the top of his chest. Ezra’s father locked eyes with his wife again, and then gave Ezra a sharp nod and went to set his plate in the sink. Without another word, he strode out of the kitchen, the door to his bedroom clicking shut a few seconds later.

“Tell Anthony he’s still welcome here any time, dear. The offer of the keys still stands.” Ezra’s mum squeezed his hand, but instead of feeling comforted, Ezra just felt even more confused.

“You’re taking this very well, Mum.”

Mrs. Seraff laughed and kissed her son on the cheek. “Honey, I’ve been watching you and Anthony for months now. I’ve never seen you look at anyone the way you look at that boy. I talked to your dad about the possibility that you might be gay a few weeks ago - I wasn’t trying to make assumptions, of course, but I was trying to get in front of this in case it happened - and we both decided that no matter what, we love you very much.”

“Would it kill him to say it every once in a while?” Ezra grumbled, picking at the last few cold bites of his dinner.

“I won’t lie to you, Ezra, your father isn’t happy about this. He was hoping I was wrong, that one day soon you’d come home with a nice girl and introduce her to all of us. He doesn’t like it, but he loves _you_ , so he’ll come around in the end. It’s just going to take him some time to get used to the idea.”

Leaning back in his chair, Ezra snorted. “And while he’s taking some time, he’s not going to punch Anthony’s lights out if he comes around here?”

Something in his mum’s eyes hardened. “Your father would never do that. He’s not a violent man, Ezra, and he’s not a bad man. He’s just afraid of what he doesn’t understand, and he’s afraid that he’s going to lose you.”

“I know that, I’m sorry.” He leaned over and kissed his mum on her forehead, leaving his lips there for longer than was necessary because he wanted her to know how much he loved her for what she’d done. She’d talked to her husband to make sure that his reaction wouldn’t be too extreme; she’d given Crowley keys to the flat even though she knew Ezra fancied him; she’d treated Crowley like a son basically since she’d met him. Ezra knew the kiss wasn’t enough of a thank you. _Nothing_ was enough of a thank you, but he had to try to say it anyway.

“Mum,” Ezra said into her hair. “Thank you. Really. For- for everything. I love you.” He kissed her forehead again for good measure, and when he sat back, there were tears in his mother’s eyes.

“I love you too, dearest.”

They cleaned up the kitchen, chatting about nothing for a while. It was quite nice, Ezra thought, to just be able to be with his mum and do something boring and have it be exactly the same as it always had been. He’d told his family about Crowley, and life had gone on. Things wouldn’t be perfect with his father by any stretch of the imagination, but it had gone over better than he’d thought it would, so that was a victory in itself. By the time the dishes were dried and the table was cleared, it was getting late, so Ezra kissed his mother good night and headed to his room.

He ended Boxing Day the way he’d started it, mostly. _Dracula_ was lying open on his lap, a cup of tea was steaming on his bedside table, and he was thinking about Crowley. One small and important detail had changed, however: he was thinking about how it _had felt_ to kiss Crowley instead of imagining how it _might feel_ , and that was a very nice thing indeed.


	19. Nineteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something very big and important happens for Ezra, and there are ramifications for his relationship with Crowley. 
> 
> Heavy introspection in this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!! Sorry it's taken so long to get this one up, and sorry that it ends on a bit of a cliff-hanger! I promise I'm wrapping up this story really soon, even though it doesn't seem like it. 
> 
> Thanks again to all y'all who have taken the time to read this fic! It's an absolute joy writing this, and as I've said before, it's become almost as much about y'all's love for it as my own, which is incredible. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and as always, please feel free to tell me your thoughts! 
> 
> In terms of things that happen in this chapter, I know that the second part of what Ezra gets in the mail usually doesn't arrive until a couple weeks or months after the first part, but I had to have it happen in a totally not-realistic time frame for the purposes of the fic. So, sorry - I usually try to be as accurate as possible, but there was no getting around this one.
> 
> Warnings for language in this one.

There was a large white envelope lying on Ezra’s bed when he got home from the coffee shop. School had started up again about a week and a half prior, which meant that  university acceptance and rejection letters were being mailed out. Ezra had already gotten into three of the universities he’d applied to - the two in London and the one in Cardiff - and was waiting to hear back from the rest. He’d told Crowley about the acceptances, of course, and Crowley had congratulated him and said that he hoped Ezra would think about staying in London when it came time to choose. Ezra hadn’t asked why Crowley had said this because he already knew. Being in London meant being near Crowley, and being anywhere else meant, well, _not._ And so he’d been planning on staying in London for uni, and he figured there would only be one thing that would change that decision: getting into Oxford on a full scholarship. Ezra honestly thought the odds of that were slim to none, but there was still a little part of him that hoped. 

This is why Ezra was standing stock-still in his doorway, staring nervously at the black letters that spelled out _University of Oxford_ as if he were afraid that the envelope were about to burst into flames. The contents of that letter would change things, change everything in his life, really, and Ezra was equal parts excited and terrified. For the first time since the dream of going to Oxford had appeared in his mind, Ezra felt that he had something to lose by going. 

“This is mad,” Ezra said to himself, setting down his book bag and picking up the letter. “I don’t even know if I’ve got _in_ yet, let alone if I’ve got a scholarship. Also, I should not even be considering turning down Oxford for my stupid boyfriend, that’s _bonkers._ ” Still, though, the urge to leave the envelope unopened tickled at the back of Ezra’s brain, and he couldn't get it to stop. He crushed it down and tore open the envelope, pulling out the top sheet of paper. 

_Dear Mr. Seraff,_

_We are pleased to inform you that your application to the University of Oxford has been successful…_

Ezra’s vision nearly went white. Shaking his head, he read it again, and when the words “ _has been successful”_ were still there, he collapsed backwards onto his bed and just _whooped_ , a wordless, joyful shout that brought his parents running into his bedroom. 

“Ezra? Are you alri- oh!” Ezra’s mum had seen the envelope and the sheet of paper in Ezra’s hand. “Go on, then! What’s it say?” 

“I’ve got in, I’ve actually got into Oxford!” He was suddenly being yanked to his feet and wrapped in his father’s biggest-ever bear hug, and his mum had started crying. Finally, after a few moments of celebration, the big question was asked. 

“What about the money, son?” His father’s joy had subsided somewhat, but that was understandable because the scholarship (or lack thereof) was really the make-it-or-break-it piece. 

Ezra remembered that there were other pieces of paper in the envelope, so he sorted through a few colorful flyers and a packet of stickers until he found another, smaller envelope with _University of Oxford Financial Assistance_ on the outside. Fingers shaking, he opened it and unfolded the enclosed letter. 

For one tense moment, the three Seraffs sat on Ezra’s bed in silence, none of them daring to breathe. Then there was another whoop from Ezra, and the letter was handed around. He’d gotten the scholarship he’d needed. 

“So we’ve got an Oxford boy in the house, then?” It was the first time in a great while that Ezra could remember seeing his father actually look proud and excited about anything, so without thinking he just nodded and grinned and launched himself back into his dad’s arms for another hug. His parents left after a while, chattering enthusiastically about buying t-shirts or even a bumper sticker for the family car, and Ezra flopped onto his bed, smiling so wide he thought he’d never stop. 

He did stop, of course, as soon as he remembered Crowley. It was a funny thing, really, that something could have made him forget Crowley at all, but he supposed that having one of his biggest dreams come true was a decent enough reason to forget about his boyfriend for a minute or two. The real problem with thinking about Crowley wasn’t actually that he was thinking about Crowley as a person but rather that he was thinking about _leaving_ Crowley. His over-excited heart kept pounding away, but something heavy settled into the pit of his stomach. 

Ezra walked over to the mirror above his dresser and stared at himself. His cheeks were pink with excitement, and his blue eyes were still a little watery from the overjoyed-crying he’d done for a minute, but he looked fine. He looked normal. His life had just turned upside down, and he looked the same as he always did, and somehow, that didn’t seem to fit. 

The more he thought about it, though, he supposed it did actually make sense. His life had held a few major turning points over the past few months, and none of those things had changed anything overall. The world kept turning, London was still mostly cold and dreary, and he was still the same person he’d always been. He found that this even applied to the change in his relationship with Crowley, when he thought about it. 

When school had begun again, the old routine of going to the shop with Crowley to study after school had as well. As a point of fact, the routine of essentially _everything_ had started up again, with the only noticeable difference being a drastic increase in the amount of physical affection. When Crowley picked Ezra up in the morning, there was always a quick peck on the lips that came along with his cup of tea. At lunch they still sat at their respective tables, but Crowley would hold Ezra’s hand as they walked to class afterwards (their classes after lunch break were in the same corridor). In the car after school, they drove to the shop and sometimes dallied a moment before going inside because they were enjoying listening to music and holding each other’s hands. They parted ways outside the shop or Ezra’s flat - depending on whether or not Crowley had come back to Ezra’s for dinner - with a long hug and another chaste kiss. The “adventures” on weekends were renamed as “dates,” but they, too, remained the same except for small breaks in the activities during which Crowley would haul Ezra up against a wall or something in a nearby alley and kiss him until neither of them could breathe very well. The kissing hadn’t progressed to full-on snogging yet because Ezra had shared his hesitation with Crowley, but he could tell that Crowley was getting a bit impatient. Every time they properly kissed, there was a little more desperation - Crowley’s hands would grab a bit more of Ezra’s jumper, or he would nibble on Ezra’s lip a little harder than he had last time, or he would trail his mouth down Ezra’s jaw and neck just to see how much of a shiver he could draw out. 

But that was it, really. Being with Crowley felt normal, comfortable, and _good._ It was earth-shattering in the respect that he loved Crowley and got to be around him a lot and kiss him and things, but it was mostly the same as it had been, which he liked. But all of that would go away when he left for Oxford. All of that would vanish. He’d be in a strange city an hour or two away from everything that was ordinary, everything that made Ezra feel like he belonged somewhere. 

Ezra glanced around his room. Everything in it was so familiar, and if he didn’t go to Oxford, it would stay that way. Walking in a slow circle around the room, he ran his fingers over everything he could touch. He reveled in the feeling of the peeling paint on the wall by the window (the window that Crowley had climbed through that night a few months ago - could that be right? Only a few months?), the soft lumpiness of his duvet (the one upon which he’d laid out the suit that Crowley had bought for him before their grand stargazing adventure), the ever-growing stack of books on his bedside table (the stack that held four first editions from Crowley’s home library)... 

That was the moment it clicked. He was standing in his bedroom, the same one he’d had since he was a young boy, and everything reminded him of Crowley. In a handful of months, Crowley had gone from one of the only people Ezra nearly hated to one of the only people Ezra truly loved, and that realization made Ezra’s head spin so fast that he got physically dizzy and had to lay back down on his bed. 

“I have to go to Oxford,” Ezra whispered to his ceiling fan. “Even if it means leaving him, I _have_ to go.” He knew it was the right decision. He could feel it, in his chest, the true rightness of that decision, but it still hurt worse than almost anything he’d ever felt. 

His mum called for dinner, then, so Ezra went. Dinner was full of Oxford-talk, and he engaged in it happily, but the little voice that kept reminding him that he had to tell Crowley wouldn’t shut up. _I don’t have to tell him tonight,_ Ezra thought. _Or even tomorrow, or even this week. I don’t have to tell him right away._ The thought of keeping anything from Crowley made him sick, but he was well and truly desperate to cling to the routine of normalcy and happiness that he’d finally found. 

When he got back to his room after dinner, there was a message from Crowley waiting on his phone, and Ezra felt sick again. So, for perhaps the first time since he’d gotten Crowley’s phone number, Ezra didn’t even open the message. Hating himself a little, Ezra shut off his phone and threw it into the top drawer of his desk. 

He didn’t pull it back out until the following morning, when he saw six texts and a missed call from Crowley. That was the response he’d been expecting, of course - he and Crowley always said goodnight either over text or via phone call, and last night he hadn’t done either. 

The sound of a horn honking from the street below told Ezra he was late, so he grabbed his coat and messenger bag and ran out into the rain. He hadn’t even gotten his seatbelt fastened when Crowley brought it up. 

“Have I done something wrong, angel?” Crowley looked and sounded very afraid, and guilt immediately latched itself onto Ezra’s brain. 

“No. _No_ , you haven’t. I just… something happened yesterday, and I think it’s a really good something, but I just needed time to process, so I shut off my phone.” At Crowley’s raised eyebrow, Ezra shook his head. “It’s nothing. We should go.” 

It wasn’t until halfway through his first class that Ezra realized he hadn’t leaned over to kiss Crowley that morning, and the guilt intensified. It got even worse when he realized that Crowley had _definitely_ leaned in for one and he’d just been too distracted to notice. 

Crowley wasn’t at lunch even after half of the period was over, so Ezra went looking for him. He was sitting alone in a classroom, staring at the wall and drinking some sort of sugar-filled energy drink from the vending machine in the hall. When the door clicked shut behind Ezra, Crowley didn’t even turn around. 

“I’m _so_ sorry, Anthony.” The only response was a non-committal grunt, which Ezra decided was probably fair. He walked carefully over to where Crowley was sitting with his feet up on a desk and sat down in the adjacent chair. This time, Crowley glanced over at him, and Ezra was horrified to see that there were tear tracks drying on his cheeks. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I’ve been awful to you today, but it’s not on purpose, and it’s nothing you’ve done. I swear it.” 

When Crowley spoke, his voice was hoarse. “Clearly it’s got something to do with me, angel. This isn’t the time to mess me about.” 

“I told you this morning, Anthony-” 

“I heard what you said,” Crowley snapped, taking a long drink from the can in his hand. “Did you hear what _I_ said?” 

Ezra flinched. “When?” 

“When we got to school, you idiot.” It was then that Ezra realized why this conversation felt different than other ones they’d had in the recent past: Crowley’s sunglasses (the ones that Ezra had bought him for Christmas, actually) were still on his face, and he’d made no move to take them off. It was a wall, that pair of sunglasses, the first and last piece of armor that Crowley wore, and seeing them during a conversation like this made Ezra feel like he’d been punched in the gut. He understood, then, just how much he’d hurt Crowley. 

“No,” Ezra admitted softly. “I didn’t hear you.” 

There was a terrible snarling sound in the back of Crowley’s throat. “I told you to have a good day, and I told you to meet me in the courtyard before lunch so we could talk or hug or do whatever you needed to do.” 

Oh. Well, that explained the strange choice of eating location, then. “I… I didn’t hear. I’m _sorry_.” The word was starting to lose meaning. 

“Why? Where is your head at, angel?” Crowley spun around to face Ezra then, lips curled into an angry sneer. His voice was strangely level, which worried Ezra even more. “Is there… is there someone else who’s caught your fancy? Or has your father said something about me that’s made you change your mind, or-” 

“ _Darling,_ no! No, it’s not like that.” 

Crowley flinched backward like Ezra had struck him. “Okay, now I _know_ something is wrong. You’ve never called me that before.” 

“I’ve wanted to.” 

“Not the bloody fucking point.” Crowley spat the words out, each of them seeming to hit the table between himself and Ezra. “The point is that something is so… I don’t know, wrong? off? messed up? that you haven’t been able to focus when I’m talking to you and you went dark without telling me. And the worst part is that I _know_ something is wrong because I _know_ you, angel, and you won’t tell me what it is.” 

Crowley was right, and Ezra knew it, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. “I’m-”

“If you say sorry, I’m walking out of that door.” The words held no emotion at all, which meant that Crowley was angrier than Ezra had ever seen him. “Just… tell me what’s going on, please, so I can stop thinking that you’re leaving me.” 

“I’m _not_ leaving you.” That made Crowley’s tense shoulders relax just a little, but before Ezra could continue, the bell rang. “I… wanted to wait to talk to you about this, but I guess I can’t handle talking to you at all until we’ve talked about this specific thing, so we should do that. Later. After school, maybe?” 

A stiff nod. “After school. Where?” 

Ezra thought for a moment. Not the library, not the coffee shop, not his flat… “Can we go to your house?” 

“Yes.” 

“Okay.” Ezra knew that a flood of students and teachers would come through the door at any second, but he leaned forward and kissed Crowley lightly on the lips anyway. “I’ll see you later.” 

“Ngk,” said Crowley, but his lips twitched ever-so-slightly, so Ezra counted that as a smile even though it really wasn’t one.


	20. Twenty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Oxford discussion is had, and it goes a little differently than Ezra had been expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning/afternoon/evening/whatever! I knocked this chapter out at a very terribly early hour of morning last night because I woke up from sleeping with an idea on how to do it, so here it is!! I hope y'all enjoy it. 
> 
> This story will be coming to a close very soon. I anticipate that the next chapter will be the last actual chapter, followed by an epilogue. I have LOVED writing this fic; it's been a blast! It started as an idea in my head, but after I wrote the first chapter, I decided to post it here as my first-ever fic and just see what happened. You all have blown me away with your love for my story and for me, and I couldn't be more excited to continue to get to know you a little better as I post more fics from here on out!
> 
> As ever, thank you for reading and commenting! I hope this chapter is everything you expect it to be and more. 
> 
> Warnings for language and discussions of alcohol use.

By the time they got to Crowley’s house, Ezra was a massive ball of nerves, and judging by the way Crowley was gripping his kitchen counter like he wanted to break it into pieces, Crowley was right there with him. The silence was deafening. Ezra simply didn’t know how to say “I’m going to move to Oxford for school, and I don’t know what that means for us, but I love you, and I couldn’t possibly bear it if I lost you over this” without saying exactly that, so he was saying nothing.

This, apparently, was stressing Crowley out. The dark sunglasses had come off as soon as they entered the house - much to Ezra’s relief - but Crowley’s golden eyes were frantic. He sauntered over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a too-large glass of gin. Ezra thought briefly about saying something but decided against it, as it was his fault that this whole conversation (or more accurately, lack thereof) was so rubbish anyway. The tumbler was almost to Crowley’s lips when it collided with the granite countertop with the bone-chilling sound of breaking glass.

“Anthony, are you alright?” Finally, something Ezra could say that was safe territory.

“I’m _fine_ ,” Crowley snapped. Clearly, though, he wasn’t, because a thick stream of blood was trickling down his palm. He’d cut himself on the broken glass. Ezra sprung into action instantly, leading Crowley over to the couch and grabbing wet towels and bandages to wrap Crowley’s injured hand. Crowley let Ezra fuss over him for a little too long, but he finally said something that made Ezra stop. “D’you know something? I wanted that glass of alcohol, angel, I really fucking did. There was a time when I would have even said that I _needed_ it, because my boyfriend is sitting in my house with something massively important to tell me and he _isn’t bloody saying anything_ , and I can’t stop thinking that he’s breaking things off for some reason.”

Ezra startled. “I already said I’m not-”

“ _Shut it_ , angel, I’m not done!” Ezra gulped and did as he was told. “Anyway. A few months ago I would have had that glass - no, actually, I just would have grabbed the bottle and gone to town - and it probably would have made me feel better, or at the very least it would have made me feel numb. Unfortunately, my stupid sodding therapist tells me that I shouldn’t drown difficult feelings in alcohol-” Ezra sent up a silent prayer of thanks for Crowley’s therapist at that, “-but I almost ignored her advice until I saw you standing here. I can’t do that anymore, angel. Do you understand? I can’t even get _drunk_ anymore, not even when I think I need to, because I just keep thinking about you and how I’d much rather be talking to you or kissing you or going somewhere with you than getting drunk.” Crowley went quiet very suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch inside his brain, so Ezra waited a moment before speaking.

“If you think you need a drink to have this conversation, Anthony, go ahead. I’ll understand. But if you can do it without, I’d prefer it. Of course I would.” He tried to keep his tone gentle, but Crowley still shivered.

“I can do it without.” Crowley’s breathing was shaky. “Can I ask- can you maybe- I just want to hold your hand, would that be alright?”

Ezra reached over and pulled Crowley practically into his lap, wrapping his hand around Crowley’s larger one and entwining their fingers. “You don’t have to ask, my dear.” Another shiver shook Crowley’s whole body at the endearment, and despite himself, Ezra smiled.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment, until Crowley sighed and kissed Ezra’s jumper-clad chest before sitting up and looking Ezra in the eyes. Their hands stayed locked together. “Whatever this is that you have to tell me, angel, just tell me. Please. My mind is a terrible fucking place sometimes, and right now it’s running mad with all of my worst nightmares.”

In spite of the seriousness of the moment, Ezra laughed a little. “I certainly don’t think it’s as bad as all that. It’s just… something that is going to change things, for me on the whole but also for… us. This, I guess,” Ezra finished lamely, gesturing to Crowley with their linked hands.

“What is it?”

“I’ve got into Oxford.” Crowley’s amber eyes went wide, and (to Ezra’s shock) a huge smile broke out across his thin face.

“Have you really? That’s _incredible_ , angel! I knew you could do it - I told you so, didn’t I? Way back in October.”

Ezra smiled back. “You did, yes.” The moment only remained light for a few seconds before Ezra turned back to the topic at hand. “The thing is, though, I’ve gotten the scholarship I needed as well, so… well I have to go, don’t I? I can’t not go.”

“Of course you do.” Crowley was still smiling, but something sad had settled in his eyes. He knew, of course, where Ezra was going with this, but Ezra had to say it anyway.

“I… I don’t want to leave you.” It sounded pathetic when he said it like that, but there it was. “I want to go to Oxford, of course I do, and I’m going to go, but I just… wish I didn’t have to leave you here in London.”

Crowley’s laugh was a little less exuberant than usual, but it still made Ezra feel a little better about everything. “It’s a ninety minute drive, which means it’s more like an hour when I’m driving. I can do that. _We_ can do that.”

“It’ll be different.”

“Yes.”

Ezra was confused. “You’re… you’re alright with that? You’d do this, for me? For us? You’d drive to Oxford and visit?”

“Every bloody weekend, if you wanted me to.” Ezra felt like a complete prat. He and Crowley had both worked this up to be such a big deal in their respective thoughts; he’d thought Crowley would think it was too much hard work and that the difference in location would make things too different to sustain, and Crowley had apparently been thinking that Ezra’s news was something traumatic enough to make them break up, and it turned out that the solution was simple. They would just keep being _them_ , albeit from a distance of less than a hundred kilometers.

“Of course I want you to, you stupid idiot.” And then Crowley had leaned in and Ezra had leaned in, and they were kissing each other like the lovesick fools that they were. After a minute or two of kissing and snuggling closer together and a little bit of Crowley’s teeth on Ezra’s earlobe (which was new, and _wonderful_ ), they pulled apart with a wet smacking sound and grinned at one another.

“I’m so proud of you, by the way.” This was punctuated with a light peck, and Ezra flushed furiously even though they’d been centimeters away from full on tongues-in-opposite-mouths snogging just moments before.

“And I’m sorry for being a git and not telling you about this right away. I was… worried, I guess, and I just blew things out of proportion.”

Crowley smiled and tucked his long body up against Ezra’s. “It’s okay. Just, next time, please talk to me so that I don’t go into abandonment-issues mode, alright?”

“I will.”

They sat together like that for a long time. Every couple of minutes, Crowley would ask a question about Oxford, and Ezra would answer if he knew (which he didn’t always, to Crowley’s amusement). It eventually occurred to Ezra that he didn’t know what Crowley’s plans for post-school activities were, so he asked.

“It’s funny you should ask me that, angel. I’ve been giving it some thought, and I think it might be fun to open my own coffee shop.”

Unbidden, one of Ezra’s eyebrows shot into his curls. “Really? Can you do that?”

Crowley shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve talked to my family lawyer about it, and he’s agreed to help me get set up. Technically, he’s off the hook after I finish the year out at school, but I actually think he might have grown to like me just a little over the past three years, so yeah. He said he’ll help.”

“How will you manage the shop and still have time to come visit on weekends?” Ezra was trying not to act as nervous as he felt, but Crowley could tell anyway.

“I’ll figure it out.”

There was another lengthy pause, during which time they shifted positions so that Ezra’s head was on Crowley’s chest and Crowley’s uninjured hand had buried itself in Ezra’s curls. Still not quite believing everything that had gone on, Ezra decided to ask for clarification one more time. “You’d really come up to Oxford? You’re serious?”

“I’ll do whatever you want, angel. I’d go to the damn moon for you if you asked.” _If you asked_. Once again, Crowley was quoting Ezra; whether it was intentional or unintentional, Ezra wasn’t sure, but it gave him an idea. He sat bolt upright and turned to face Crowley, eyes sparkling.

“Alpha Centauri.”

Obviously not following, Crowley just blinked at him. “What?”

“When we were in the planetarium, you asked me if I’d come with you to Alpha Centauri, do you remember?”

“I remember you didn’t say yes,” Crowley grumbled. Shaking his head, Ezra leaned forward and kissed the grumpy frown lines on Crowley’s forehead.

“Actually, I said what you just said. I said ‘If you asked.’ And now I’ve got this idea - it’s completely mad, mind, because we’ve been dating for less than a month - but do you want to hear it anyway?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation at all, and Ezra’s breath caught a little.

“Oxford is a nice town. It’s not London, but it’s nice. And I’m sure there’s a storefront somewhere that could be filled by a coffee shop, and-”

“What are you asking me?” Leave it to Crowley to be blunt, as always, and ruin Ezra’s great romantic speech.

Taking a deep, bracing breath, Ezra just went for it. “Come with me.” Crowley stared, mouth dropping open slightly, and said nothing. Of course, because Ezra was Ezra, he panicked and started to backtrack. “See? I told you it was mad, and I wasn’t expecting you to agree to it, it was just a crazy idea. Forget I ever-”

“I’ll do it.” Apparently, Crowley had regained the ability to talk, and those three words were so final and certain that it took Ezra a moment to register that anything had been said.

“You’ll- are you serious, Anthony?”

“If you are. I’m not tied to London, really; all of this stuff is just memories of my parents, no matter how many times I paint the walls or change the furniture. I can pack the books up and store them somewhere in Oxford for when you want to open your bookshop after uni - I can make sure I rent out two adjacent storefronts, and we can work on building the bookshop in our free time - but everything else I have here isn’t worth much.”

Ezra thought that some teasing was in order. “Even the Bentley?”

Crowley looked affronted. “The Bentley comes with me, of course. I’d never go anywhere without it.”

“Oh, I know. I was just having you on.” And because he couldn’t believe that he’d found and fallen in love with someone just as mad as himself, Ezra launched himself at Crowley’s mouth again. This time, though, he very clumsily and inartfully stuck his tongue into Crowley’s mouth, just sort of leaving it there until Crowley did some very clever things with his own tongue. Ezra had always been a quick learner, and he discovered that French-kissing was no exception to that rule. He had been right about snogging, for the record: it _was_ very weird, but in an extremely pleasant way. Ezra’s favorite thing about it was the little grunting and humming noises that Crowley was making. He’d discovered right from the start that Crowley made very lovely sounds while kissing and cuddling and doing other romantic things, and Ezra was quite addicted to finding new things that would make Crowley make those sounds.

It took a little while, but Crowley finally wrenched his mouth away from Ezra’s. “Okay, okay,” Crowley muttered against Ezra’s lips. “We should stop, if we’re taking this slow.”

“Right,” Ezra said, going a bit dizzy at the sight of Crowley’s lips, which were red and swollen and (in Ezra’s not-so-humble-anymore opinion) fucking beautiful. “Yeah. I should…” He squirmed a bit, crawling backwards out of Crowley’s lap. They looked at each other and laughed, the world suddenly feeling much more like their oyster and much less like a prison cell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also!! At the request of delusioninabox, I’ve written a missing scene chapter that immediately follows this one. It’s not necessary to understand the ending, but it just adds a little something else! Check it out if you want (kudos and comments are always appreciated, of course!). 
> 
> You can find it here: 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/19723690


	21. Twenty-One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final real chapter. Things that need to be said are finally said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, then! Apparently, my writer-brain has been very anxious to get the end out to you all, which is why there were so many updates in such a short period of time. If there were any moments you particularly liked from the previous updates, feel free to comment there and let me know! I’d love to see what you think :) 
> 
> I'll have an epilogue up tonight or tomorrow. This chapter is really short, but I think it wraps things up well. 
> 
> I love you all SO MUCH and am so thankful for all of the support and love I've received from you! You've no idea how validating it is for me to hear that you've enjoyed this story - I've never shared my work with people before, so this was a really new and exceptionally positive experience for me! I hope all of you are happy with this final chapter, and please let me know your thoughts (as always) if you'd like to! 
> 
> It's very possible that I might write a few oneshots of these two somewhere down the line (dates we didn't see, life in Oxford, that type of thing), so I think that their story is far from over! If this is something you'd like to see, let me know!!
> 
> Warnings here for language and a lot of really sappy tooth-rotting stuff.

Spring had finally come to London, and Ezra was having a picnic with Crowley in St. James’ Park. The ducks, as they tended to do, were pestering Ezra for a piece of his sandwich crust, which he tossed to them with a little smile. Crowley mumbled something about Ezra being a bloody pushover, but Ezra ignored him and just leaned back onto his elbows, surveying the (for once, blue) sky and the families walking down by the pond.

Ezra had set up the picnic, of course. Picnics weren’t exactly Crowley’s thing, as he preferred fine dining - or at the very least, dining indoors - but there was something about eating homemade sandwiches and store-bought crisps and sodas outside on a large blanket that sounded delightful to Ezra, so that’s what they were doing. Crowley would never have admitted this to Ezra, but he was actually having quite a nice time.

They held hands for a while, watching the people and the ducks, reminiscing about the time they’d run into each other here before their first dinner at the Ritz.

“It was a good date, I thought,” Crowley said with a yawn.

Ezra was confused. “You must be thinking of the time last month, dear. I’m talking about the _first_ time, when you took me and I freaked out about it.” Strangely, Crowley flushed a bright shade of red.

“I know.”

Pulling his hand out of Crowley’s, Ezra spun around and looked his boyfriend in the face. The glasses that Crowley still always wore in public made it impossible for Ezra to see his eyes, but he guessed that if he could see them, they would be wide and embarrassed. “You counted that as a date?”

“It was to me,” Crowley muttered, picking at a blade of grass. “I know it wasn’t to you, but… I counted it. For myself, you know. A consolation prize in the place of something I never thought I’d actually have.”

This response prompted a very interesting question, so Ezra asked it. “How long, exactly, have you fancied me, Anthony?” It was more straightforward and much less tactful than Ezra usually tried to be, but the answer seemed very important.

Crowley sighed, laying back on the blanket and lacing his fingers together over his thin stomach. “I don’t know. I think since I met you, probably.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Really?”

There was a humming sound from Crowley’s side of the blanket. “Yeah.”

“Right,” Ezra said faintly. “I thought you hated me.”

Crowley snorted. “Nah. I thought _you_ hated _me_.”

Flopping down next to Crowley, Ezra was a little hurt. “Oi! I was nice to you, you prat - you were the rude one!”

“Yes, because I fancied you and didn’t know what to do about it! Give a bloke a break, will you?” Crowley sounded annoyed, but when Ezra looked over, he was smiling. The conversation died for a moment, and they locked hands again as they stared up at the clouds. Then, because apparently Crowley was in a quid-pro-quo mood, “It’s only fair that you tell me when you first started to fancy me, you know.”

Ezra blushed a deep shade of scarlet. “I feel quite silly, now. And I don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”

Crowley laughed. “Tell me anyway.”

“It was that night, the one at the Ritz. The first time we went, I mean.”

Propping himself up onto one arm, Crowley leaned over a little. “Oh. That’s… not very long ago, then, actually.”

“I think you’re the first bloke I ever properly fancied, though. If that makes you feel better.” Obviously, Ezra was trying very hard to repair any damage he’d done to Crowley’s ego, but what he said was true. He’d found certain blokes handsome at a surface-level before, of course, but he’d never really truly _liked_ someone until he’d gotten to know Crowley.

To Ezra’s delight, Crowley’s lean chest puffed out a little, and he settled back down beside Ezra. “I suppose it might. A bit.”

“Those were really dates, to you?”

“Of course.”

Ezra chuckled and leaned his head onto Crowley’s shoulder. “I wish you’d have said. We could have been doing this for a lot longer.”

“Didn’t think you liked me, angel. Didn’t think you ever could.”

“Don’t be daft. I love you.”

Looking back on it, Ezra couldn’t be sure what made him say it. It wasn’t the perfect movie moment, it wasn’t accompanied by some grand gesture or anything particularly special. It was said in the middle of a public park on a picnic blanket full of sandwich crumbs and crisp shards, and Ezra hadn’t even meant to say it.

The look on Crowley’s face was a blend of shock, elation, and a little bit of fear. “No, you don’t,” he said slowly. “You _can’t_ \- oh, do you really?”

“Yes,” Ezra said, and kissed him sweetly on the mouth, decidedly not caring that they were in a public place with people walking all around them. “I know it’s absolutely ridiculous for me to say it, we’ve only been together properly since the end of December, but I _do_.”

“Right.” Crowley looked rather like he was trying to swallow cotton balls.

Ezra hadn’t expected for Crowley to say it back. Much as he loved Crowley, he knew that the touchy-feely emotions freaked him out a bit, so he tried not to be disappointed when a few long moments passed without Crowley saying anything. “Anyway.” Ezra cleared his throat. “I, erm, had wanted to wait for a better moment to say that, but it just sort of came out, so…” He trailed off, rubbing absent-minded circles across the back of Crowley’s hand.

“I love you, too.” Those four words were so quiet that Ezra almost didn’t hear them, but he _did_ hear them, and his heart nearly flew out of his chest. He didn’t even think about it, just sat up enough to lean over Crowley and kiss him again, this time a little more passionately than was really appropriate for such a public setting. Crowley realized this after a moment and pushed Ezra back, grinning at him.

“I love you, Anthony.” Now that he’d said it, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“I love you back, you daft fucking angel.” They didn’t kiss again because they’d gotten some withering stares from a couple passers-by on the last go around, but they did curl up a little closer to one another as they went back to staring at the sky.

Ezra lay there, his head resting on Crowley’s chest. If someone had told him a year ago, even nine months ago, that he would be having a picnic in St. James’ Park with Anthony Crowley, the bloke he not only was dating but was fully arse-over-teakettle in love with, he would have called the nearest psychiatric hospital and had them committed. It didn’t seem real, all of this. It seemed impossible, and he couldn’t understand why or how he’d been lucky enough for it to happen, but he found that he was indescribably happy that it had.

Because Ezra was a lover of literature and great, often unused words, the perfect word for the situation floated to the front of his mind. “Ineffable,” he whispered into Crowley’s shoulder.

“What did you say?”

“Ineffable,” Ezra repeated. “It means ‘beyond understanding and incapable of being put into words.’”

Crowley huffed a little. “And what exactly is ineffable at the moment?”

“Us.” Ezra nuzzled his nose a little further into Crowley’s jacket. “We are. But it’s a good thing, being ineffable.”

“Is it?” Crowley sounded bemused, but there was a little bit of happiness there as well.

“Very,” Ezra said. “I love you, and you love me back, and it’s just… ineffable.”

“Ah,” said Crowley with a smile and happy hum, and they were silent for quite a while after that.

In a few weeks, Ezra knew that school would let out, and they’d have the summer to get things organized up in Oxford before they moved there in the fall. Crowley had gone up and found a couple of shops for sale, and he’d signed the lease on them. It was all new, and it was all very exciting, and Ezra was - as always - quite nervous about it. But then he looked over at Crowley, who had fallen asleep in the sun, and he smiled.

Sometimes, it seemed to him, things that seem dark and frightening on the outside are quite the opposite on the inside. He wasn’t sure where things between himself and Crowley would end up, but he knew that what they had was something special. It was a careful kind of something that was paradoxically both ineffable and made perfect sense. Ezra closed his eyes, then, listening to the slow sound of Crowley’s breathing and the thumping of the heart beneath his ear. As the ducks ran off to bother a shady-looking man on the bench across the way and a light spring wind began to blow, Ezra fell asleep.

He drooled a little on Crowley’s jacket, of course.


	22. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very short (not quite 1,500 words) epilogue of Crowley's coffee shop as seen through the eyes of a stranger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is it, then! If you're sad that this story is ending (so am I, for the record), please remember that I'll write a couple of one-shots of things I didn't include in this piece, so Ezra and Crowley will be back! 
> 
> To all of you readers: I have so enjoyed writing this and hearing from those of you who have chosen to comment. Please know that if you haven't commented but have read this and left kudos (or even just read it and liked it in your mind!), I value you and appreciate you so so much as well!! 
> 
> Thanks for stopping by my little corner of Ao3. I'll see you soon! 
> 
> All my love,  
> Hope*
> 
> *this isn't my real name, but it IS what you guys give me, so I'm adopting it as my screen name when I sign off on things.
> 
> Also! If you're interested in reading the other of my Good Omens human AUs ("The Best Laid Plans"), you can find it here:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/19747336/chapters/46740028

Duality Coffee and Tea stood on the corner across the street from the University of Oxford. It had been open for only a few months, but students and Oxford locals alike loved it. Agnes hadn’t been to it yet, but a rainy Friday afternoon seemed like an appropriate time for a nice cup of hot tea, and she’d heard that Duality boasted quite the selection. As Agnes ducked under the awning and shook out her umbrella, she noticed that the shop next door had newspapered-up its windows, and a handwritten sign - “This will be an antique bookshop as soon as its proprietor finishes uni” - was taped to the door. Smiling, Agnes walked a few meters down and pulled open the door to Duality.

The first thing she noticed was the color scheme. The shop seemed to be divided into three parts by painted blocks of white, grey, and black that ran the length of the floor and covered the walls. Even the counter at the far end was divided into the same three colors. It seemed odd, at first, until she looked down at the floor and saw painted words that explained it.

Laid over the white tile was “I prefer tea.” The grey boasted “I have no preference,” and the black said “I prefer coffee.” She laughed as she looked around, noting that everyone seated in the white-painted section was drinking tea from white mugs, everyone in the black-painted section sipped coffee from black ones, and the people in the grey-painted section drank from a combination of both.

Agnes approached the counter and placed her order - oolong tea with almond milk and honey - and stepped off to the side to wait for it. To her left, just on the other side of the counter, was a thin man with red hair who was frowning at his watch every few seconds. Strangely, he was wearing sunglasses even though he was indoors, and he had on tight dark jeans and a black t-shirt with “Coffee” written across the front in bold white letters. The barista she’d ordered from had the same one, so she guessed that it must be a shop-employee thing. This assumption was verified a few moments later by a tall dark-haired waiter wearing a grey shirt with “No Preference” on it. She smiled to herself and turned to the guy across the counter, who was looking increasingly anxious with every check of his watch.

“Cool concept, innit?” He startled and looked up. His name plaque said “Anthony” in the same scrawling handwriting as the sign on the shop next door.

“What?”

Agnes shot him her most disarming smile - he was very cute, in fact, now that she could see his face - and tried again. “This shop. It’s a cool concept.”

The bloke hummed. “Glad you think so.”

“What do you do here?”

He shrugged. “I’m the owner, actually, but I help out behind the counter when I’m needed.” This was a surprise; he didn’t look much older than Agnes, and she said so.

“Really? You look about my age.” There was an odd-sounding grunt in response, and the guy pulled out his phone and then frowned at it, too. “Waiting for someone, Anthony?” If Agnes had been anyone else, she would have sensed that this handsome stranger was actively trying not to sustain a conversation with her, but she was the type of person who loved talking to other people and typically didn’t recognize the signs of other people not wanting to talk to her.

“Yeah,” Anthony said with another glance at his (quite expensive-looking, actually) watch. “He’s usually here by now, I wonder what’s keeping him.”

Agnes dismissed her thoughts of possibly getting his number. “Got a bloke, then?”

“Mmm.”

The barista called Agnes’s name, so she grabbed her tea from the counter and headed toward the white-walled area of the shop. “Nice to meet you, Anthony! I like your shop, I’ll probably be back.” She smiled at him again, and this time when he looked up at her, his lips twitched just enough for it to qualify as a smile.

She settled into a seat at an empty table close to the counter. In addition to being talkative, Agnes had a very happy obsession with people-watching, and so she watched Anthony from over the top of her book (a book that she was not actually reading but just had out for appearance’s sake). A few minutes went by, and then the door flew open and a blond-haired young man ran into the shop and hopped behind the counter. He was wearing a lumpy University of Oxford jumper underneath his white raincoat. Anthony’s face had split into a grin as soon as this new bloke had walked in, so Agnes figured that this was his boyfriend.

“I’m so sorry, my dear! I got caught up talking to Laurie - do you remember her? She was at dinner with us last month - and lost track of time.” The blond leaned in and pecked Anthony lightly on the lips, and Agnes was happy to see that this made Anthony’s face go a bit pink. The two men disappeared into the back for a moment, and when they re-appeared, the blond was wearing a “Tea” t-shirt (a _tea-shirt_ , Agnes joked to herself) and holding Anthony’s hand. He dropped it to wash his hands in the sink, and then he tied an apron around his waist and walked out onto the floor. Agnes dropped her eyes back to her book and pretended to be busy.

A throat cleared across the table, and she jumped a little. “Hello,” said Anthony’s bloke. “I hope you don’t mind me interrupting - I’m Ezra, by the way - but that is a _wonderful_ book! Excellent choice.”

“Oh?” Agnes glanced down at the top of the page, having forgotten which book she was pretending to read, and found that it was _Pride and Prejudice_. “Oh, yes, it is! One of my favorites.”

The boy - Ezra - nodded and gave her an exceptionally warm smile. “A classic. Austen was a genius; I have a first edition of that one at home, actually!”

“A first edition?” Those were rare, and even people who didn’t read much, like Agnes, knew that.

“Yes! My boyfriend, Anthony - he’s over there in the dark glasses - has quite the collection of rare books that he inherited from his parents. He’s giving them to me so I can open an antique bookshop next door after I finish up my degree in a couple of years.”

Agnes was very relieved that Ezra was just as talkative as she, so she closed her book and laid it on the table. “I saw the sign on the door! That’s very interesting.” He looked rather chuffed at that. “What are you studying?”

“English literature.”

“Oh, my friend is in that!”

Ezra raised an eyebrow. “Who?”

“Sean Barrow, he’s a third year.”

“No, sorry. I’m only in my second year.”

Agnes waved her hand. “Nothing to worry about! Just thought you might have crossed paths.”

Anthony had come up behind Ezra, looking quite a lot happier than he had before Ezra had come in. “Hi. Sorry for being a bit rude to you, earlier…” He trailed off, searching for her name, which Agnes suddenly realized she hadn’t given to either of them.

She stuck her hand out. “Agnes.”

“I didn’t even think to ask, how incredibly rude of me. I’m so sorry, Agnes,” Ezra said, taking her hand and looking a bit embarrassed. Crowley shook her hand next, and then she dropped it back to the table to pick up her cup of tea.

“We’ll let you get back to your book. Nice to meet you,” Anthony said with another little smile. “Come on, angel. Let’s go help, there’s a line stacking up.”

There was, and Agnes finished her tea quickly to free up the table she was occupying. As she walked out the door and into the rain, she turned back around just in time to see Anthony press a soft kiss to Ezra’s cheek. Mentally, she made a note to come back to Duality at least once a week. It was good tea.

If she had been around when the shop closed that night, she would have seen Ezra and Anthony leave the shop with their hands locked together. She would have seen them get into a sleek-looking vintage black Bentley, and she probably would have looked away awkwardly when Ezra launched himself across the car and pinned Anthony to the window in a kiss. 

If she had seen this, Agnes would have described it to her friends as the simple moments between a young couple in love. As it happened, it was, and so her description would have been perfectly nice and very accurate indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I now have a [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hopeinthedark1901), so come say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hope-inthedark) talking, writing, and making art about these silly Husbands. 
> 
> If you would like to make any sort of creative work (art, podfic, whatever) based on this or any of my stories, consider this blanket permission to do so! I only ask that you would tag me in your work so that I can see it and share it! Thank you for being here, and thank you for reading. I hope you are having the best day!


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